Please note the following phishing scam: These scams are becoming far more fine-tuned to South African victims and especially university accounts. Earlier this month there was a specific scam using Alexander-Forbes as a means to attack, Alexander-Forbes being the university’s preferred consultant for insurance, medical aid consultancy etc. Barely a week later Virgin Active’s name was used to attempt to scam university personnel. This week it is the turn of Outsurance. The e-mails are virtually identical, only the names and the servers in the background change, but you should be able to see that they are homing more and more to South African users, which tells me one thing that either they are getting this information from South African victims or these scamming operations are South-African based. Here is an expurgated version of the scam. Please take note and be very careful! From: Absa [mailto:ibt@onlinedata.co.za] Sent: 29 October 2012 01:46 PM To: Name <university_email@address.goes.here> Subject: Cancellation Of Debit Order(Absa) Dear Customer, We received a Debit Order alert on your account this morning from Outsurance Insurance Company to deduct the sum of R3150.00 from your account. If you don’t want to authorized this Debit Order you can cancel by following the instruction below. Click below to Cancel the Debit Order on your profile. You will receive a message on your cellphone with a link, type in the last Eight digit RVN on the SMS message to complete the cancellation. click here to Cancel. . Regards, Security Department
(INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY DAVID WILES)
The software indeed “kidnaps” your data by encrypting or limiting your access to it and then sending you a message demanding money to regain your access. The only way access is possible again, is by acquiring an encryption key from the creator of the ransomware at a fee.