Scam Alert: Beware of New Spam E-mail "Meeting Invite" -Don't Open

Meet the Meeting Invite Spam

Trend Micro recently issued a warning of a new type of spam, Meeting Invite spam.

In this latest attack, Nigerian scam spammers are using meeting invites to bypass anti-spam engines. The e-mail invites are personalized with a different link sent to each recipient and may be configured to send meeting alerts in order to draw increased attention to the spam message.

According to the Internet content security provider, it has been for the past 12 months tracking numerous formats but this is the first time the Google Calendaring system has been used as a mechanism. Spam filters may be designed to automatically filter out attachment spam or image spam, however they are less likely to be set up to track for this new delivery mechanism.

"We will most likely see this spam delivery method used for other types of spam--pump and dump, links to web threats, etc," said Jamz Yaneza, research project manager at Trend Micro.

"It is likely that on the back of this first attack, we can expect to see such tools like Google calendar, further abused to contain malicious links and try to steal sensitive information."

Trend Micro encourages all businesses and end users to demonstrate extra caution when receiving unexpected meeting invitations and other unexpected mail. On execution such attacks pose risks to recipients including the possibility of executing malicious code or other malware.

Already, Trend Micro has added this new type of spam to its spam blocking databases. For non-Trend Micro customers, the Company advises users to delete any similar meeting invite messages that might arrive in their inbox.

Source: SDA Asia Magazine