Backscatter Spam Attack Used to Deliver Bitcoin Extortion Messages to Eastern Europe

Alexandru_BD
Alexandru_BD admin
edited January 2022 in News & Blogs

Bitdefender Antispam Lab researchers have been analyzing a wave of extortion messages sent via backscatter spam or “non-delivery report messages” (NDR). Beginning Jan. 4, spammers have been focusing on delivering tens of thousands of messages to recipients in Eastern Europe, including Romania, Hungary and Croatia.

Backscatter spam attacks are the result of malicious actors forging or spoofing the “From” address (using valid e-mail addresses) in a sent email. Once the spam email is assembled, the spammers send the messages to non-existent recipients, tricking the email servers into returning the undeliverable message to the forged e-mail address in the “From” section of the email header.

Backscattering is used to bypass spam filters and get recipients to read a message or access attachments. Most often, an NDR recipient will check the validity of the message before deleting it. The non-delivery report messages generated as a result of this spam campaign contain extortion messages claiming recipients’ devices are infected with malicious software.

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Comments

  • boomer
    boomer
    edited January 2022

    Can Bitdefender remove this one?

  • Hello @boomer,

    The answer is yes, Bitdefender will protect you against malicious e-mail content and fraudulent attacks.

    Stay safe.

    Premium Security & Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools user

  • Scan does not find it though
  • If you have Bitdefender up and running on your devices with all of the modules enabled, no malware FROM those spam e-mails will even get to your computer.

    Premium Security & Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools user