A Peter Pan pantomime in Bournemouth is being used as part of a sophisticated attack from Eastern Europe that is targetting thousands of British businesss.
According to the Telegraph, an email claiming to be a £145 invoice for nine tickets to a performance of Peter Pan at the Bournemouth Pavilion theatre contained an attachment that if opened installs a virus onto the recipent’s computer. Once installed, the malware, which the email claims are the tickets for the pantomime performance, captures highly sensitive personal and commericial information including passwords and is almost “undetectable” by current anti-virus software.
This scam has has been targeted at businesses around the UK, breaching firm’s electronic defences and spam filters. Experts say the attack appears to originate from the Belarus’ National Academy of Sciences and it has also been linked to servers based in France.
The problem here is that victims have noted the authentic feel of the email, and in some cases have claimed that last four digits of a credit card quoted in the fraudulent messages match their own. Also, in keeping with 419 scams, the email is based on a real event – the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre is holding its Peter Pan pantomime from 6th December to 4th January.
Online virus experts Comodo say that the detection rate for this latest forgery is just 3/55 meaning that even users with the latest anti-virus filters could be at risk.
