Beware McDonalds Christmas Offer Email is Spyware

I have just recieved this email and had a good delve through it and it is actually malware. If you have not recieved it yet DO NOT open it. If you have opened it then run your checker through it. If you have not got a checker then have a look to the right and check out one of the products there that will find it.

Read on....


Who’s going to turn down an email savings coupon from that great American institution - McDonalds? The cyber-criminals behind this spam/scam email are counting on the fact that not many of us will turn it down.

Let’s face it - we’re all pretty used to McDonalds wishing us a “Merry Christmas” so getting an email with that heading is likely to entice many of us to “Simply print the coupon from this Email and head to your local McDonald’s for FREE giveaways and AWESOME savings” as the email instructs.

According to PandaLabs, Panda Security’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware however, you won’t get a coupon, you won’t get “FREE giveaways and AWESOME savings”, but you will get infected by the P2PShared.U worm.

“Once on the computer”, according to Panda, “the worm sends out emails with the same subject and appearance to other users. Finally, it copies itself to folders of various P2P file-sharing programs (eMule, LimeWire, Morpheus, etc.) with names relating to security software, image editing programs, program cracks, etc. This way, any user that tries to download any of these applications will be actually letting a copy of the worm into their computer”.

At this time of the year, we can expect to be bombarded by socially engineered email spam/scam with a Christmas or Holiday Season theme, so be more vigilant than you normally would be.

Don’t open unknown email attachments

Don’t run programs of unknown origin

Disable scripting features in email programs

Ensure your anti-virus software scans all e-mail attachments

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