Scam emails claiming to be from Correos will infect computers, warn police
Scam emails claiming to be from Correos will infect computers, warn police
NATIONAL Police have warned of an email scam from hackers purporting to be from the Spanish post office, Correos.
It claims the user has a registered letter or parcel to collect, for which they need to click on a link, and if they do not do so, Correos will charge them €7.55 a day for holding it.
Spaniards and those who speak Spanish to a high level will notice that the text contains grammatical errors, but for those who do not, the main clue that the message is not from the post office is in the fact that accented letters are replaced with an apostrophe before or after the vowel.
If users click on the link, this will automatically download malware which changes all files on the infected computer to 'encrypted'.
The programme changes the extensions on all documents to 'encrypted', meaning they cannot be opened or read.
And the hackers advise that to restore the files will cost €299, provided this is paid by a given deadline, after which the amount will double.
Police warn not to open any links unless the user is sure about where they come from, to keep antivirus software updated, never run files with the extension .exe unless certain they are safe, always ensure file extensions are visible and back up everything, ideally on a separate pen drive, so that in the event of a hacking attack the operating system can be reinstalled and the files will be safe.
In the event of receiving an email apparently from a legitimate organisation such as Correos, the user should check with them first by phone or in person before opening links.
Police say sometimes restoring the operating system to an earlier date, before the computer became infected, can enable the user to recover the majority of the encrypted files.
