Health & Fitness
Travelers: Beware of Airline Ticket Email Virus
This airline email scam can ruin a perfectly good computer.
I’ve been to Grand Rapids, both the Minnesota and Michigan locations. No offense to either city, but I have no plans on returning this month, despite an email confirmation that I have a reservation on American Airlines.
If you’ve received a similar email in the past six weeks or get one in the future, take note. Some hacker is trying to gain access to your computer and you need to make sure that your virus protection is up-to-date. Mine wasn’t. It didn’t take hackers long to realize it and soon the email arrived.
It looked legitimate. It was sent from an @aa.com email address. The subject line was “Your Order #10909434” and had an attachment called, “Ticketzip.” However, in the body of the email the hacker said I was flying to simply “Grand Rapids” on Jan. 29 at 10:53 p.m. Apparently, the cost of the ticket was “192.22 USD.” The instructions were to print the attached ticket. Curious about whether my credit card had been compromised, I attempted to open the attachment.
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That’s when the trouble started. My C drive disappeared and my new computer was infected. I’ll tell you about the fix in a minute. First, I want to tell you about my conversation with American Airlines customer service. Sharon knew what I was getting at. She apologized that I had become a victim and said she gets about a dozen calls a day related to the same scam. American Airlines’ security team and the FBI are both on the case, she assured me. I was instructed to delete the message.
Sharon also said that American Airlines would have listed the full destination, both the departure and arrival times in the body of an email. They do not send attachments, she said. My email omitted the state and arrival time. She further assured me that none of the victims have had credit card charges related to the scam, which was another concern.
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Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit I fell for this scam, but in hopes of preventing someone else from going through the same trouble, I want to spread the word. To repair the problem and restore my programs, I ran Combofix. That seemed to take care of most of the problem.
All my best to the Grand Rapids folks.
