You've probably, at one time or another, sent Viagra spam to all your email contacts. It wasn't intentional, but it happened, and you moved on. And while a typical response from one of the unfortunate recipients probably went something like "Hey, you know you've been sending spam to everybody," there's a chance someone in your contacts list wasn't too pleased.
With that in mind, a new cybercrime campaign is currently spreading, luring in victims by telling them that their accounts have been sending spam, and that they will be sued as a result.
The messages, detected by the security firm Websense, read, "Your email is sending spam messages! If you don't stop sending spam, we will be impelled to sue you! We've attached a scanned copy of the document by our security service to this letter. Please carefully read through the document and stop sending spam messages."
These warnings, Websense said, are made to look like they come from legitimate companies and include subject lines such as "We are going to sue you," "This is the final warning," "You are sending ad messages" and "We've sent you a copy of a complaint."
The supposed spam complaint is where the danger lies: The file is not a copy of a lawsuit, but rather an attachment containing a Trojan virus which, once downloaded, worms its way into targeted systems and downloads malicious files. The Trojan is also capable of connecting to remote servers, Websense said.
If you receive this or any other email threatening legal action over spam, ignore it and do not download any attachments. As a rule, never trust unsolicited emails that contain attachments or demand you download anything or enter any personal information.