City of London Police are sending emails containing important information about a murder suspect. You must be vigilant, and if you see this individual, you should not approach him! The attachment sent via email contains his image, so you will know to avoid him and alert the police if you see him. Unfortunately, opening the attachment will make you a victim. You will not be murdered, but you may end up having your bank account emptied. Yes, this is a City of London Police email scam, and it attempts to convince the good, law abiding public to infect their devices with malware.
City of London Police Email Scam Warning!
One of the latest email scams to be wary of, especially if you live in the UK, involves spam emails with the subject “London City Police.” Contained in the email is a bulletin detailing a murder suspect on the loose, together with a malware-infected attachment.
Fortunately for the wary, there is a clue in the subject that the email is not genuine. There is of course no “London City Police.” The police force in question is called “The City of London Police.” That said, the shock of receiving an email from law enforcement about a murderer on the loose may be enough to convince many to open the email and the attachment.
As one would expect, the email contains a stern warning, with the content phrased in such a way that it could in fact have been sent by the police force. A murderer on the loose in London is a serious matter, and this cunning email spam campaign has been devised to play on the fear that such a matter is likely to create.
How would the Police force have got your email address, and those of everyone else living in your area? That is something that many victims of this email scam may ponder after opening the attachment. Of course, by then it will be too late. Opening the attachment will result in malware being installed on the victim’s computer.
Fortunately, email scams such as this are easy to avoid, in fact, they would not even get to the point of being delivered to an inbox, if precautions have been taken, as explained by Steven Kenny, Customer Support Manager at TitanHQ.
Kenny pointed out that by using SpamTitan, computer users will be protected. He said, “This malware was blocked by SpamTitan before it had a chance to make it to users’ inboxes.” He went on to say, “The malware contained in the attachment was flagged as a virus. The attachment is a zip file, once executed; the malware goes to work.”
SpamTitan Blocked the City of London Police Email Scam
The image below is a screenshot of the City of London Police email scam, which was successfully blocked by SpamTitan.
Current High Risk of Malware Infection
Malware poses a major risk to individuals, but businesses are especially at risk of infection. Employees may be wary of opening emails on their own devices, but are they as security conscious at work?
It is perhaps easier to believe that a work email address would be in the police database, rather than a personal email account. This may lead employees to believe that the email is genuine. Unfortunately, all it takes is for one employee to open an infected attachment, and their computer, and the network it connects to could be infected.
Since email is essential in business, protections must be put in place to ensure networks are not compromised as a result of the actions of employees. If malware is installed, the losses suffered can be considerable. It therefore can pay dividends to implement protection such SpamTitan spam filtering. This will prevent malware-infected emails from being delivered to employees’ inboxes.