iPhone 5 email scam in full swing

The new iPhone is less than a day away from being announced and many people will be keen on picking one up. Well, some folks have decided to take advantage of this fact and have been sending out emails with a link to download malware in the form of an “iPhone 5GS” advertisement, promising to get you one delivered to your door by Friday. To the trained eye and most tech savvy folks, it’s not so much of a problem (like most scams anyway), but those who are not in the know are likely to click on such links.

Clicking on the link to check out the iPhone 5GS will prompt the user to download a file called iphone5.gif.exe. Upon running it, a picture of a badly photoshopped “iPhone” image pops up (shown below) while in the background it opens a connection to a foreign IRC server. Infected machines can then be controlled by the external server, which puts the users at risk of being spied on, files stolen/deleted or even being harassed by a cyber bully.

Fortunately it’s not a very advanced piece of code and can be easily gotten rid off – but for people who pay no caution or aren’t too tech savvy – it could prove to be a headache. Remember, always been on the lookout for suspicious looking emails or links, you can never be too careful.

George Wong
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: Apple Inc, iOS, iPhone, iPhone 5, Malware, scam