This fake notice to appear in court claims that you need to bring documents with you and it even tells you if necessary you have a right to obtain a lawyer for your protection, “How nice of them!”
But be aware the attached zip file contains an executable virus or Trojan horse.
These emails spoof some law firm domain names like; jonesday.com, lw.com or alston.com and others in the headers. It is important to note that while these are real law firms and real law firm domain names these emails are not from them.
Some of the subject lines read as follows:
- Subject: Hearing of Your Case in Court
- Subject: Pre-Trial Notice
- Subject: Urgent Court Notice
- Subject: Notice To Appear In Court
- Subject: Note of Court Attendance
- Subject: Notice To Appear In Court Order
Spotting a Scam E-Mail
Let’s look at the step-by-step to see what is wrong with this email.
- Firstly we have an attachment that is a zip file, this is a big no-no.
- 2nd it doesn’t begin with a proper salutation or greeting it just says “pretrial notice” with no names mentioned.
- The 3rd thing we look at is the atrocious grammar (see below)
“Hereby we inform that you are obliged to come as a defendant
to The Court of Atlanta in February 21, 2014 at 10:30 a.m.
for the hearing of your case of illegal software use.
If necessary you have a right to obtain a lawyer for your protection.
You are kindly asked to have an identity document with you.
Personal appearance is compulsory.
Please find the plaint note with more detailed case information
attached to this letter and study it thoroughly.”
Bear in mind that bad grammar is not necessarily an absolute confirmation that an email is a scam, but it’s generally a good indicator, after all some of my friends use poor grammar and they’re not all sending scams!
What is in the Scam Email?
For those of you that are interested in following the types of viruses and worms and Trojans that these things deliver, this particular email is delivering what’s called Asprox.
The one dangerous part about this Trojan is that it can deliver additional payloads to your computer which will be in the form of malware or other advertising. In fact it is so intrusive that every time you log onto the Internet it could be downloading another payload.
As always with any email scam or potential scam “when in doubt throw it out”. Make no bones about it, it is time to delete these emails.
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