Email virus

[Catherine]

We all know not to open these, but this one looks nasty

Interfax fake email

[Margaret CPA in OH]

And you are tempting us to click on it?  Hmm...

[SaraEA]

I have received several emails in the past two weeks from something like PTIN @ irs.gov.  It says there is a message in my secure mailbox and to go to my account following the link.  The IRS announced awhile back about crooks trying to access our info, so after the first email I went directly to the irs site I know and love and logged into my PTIN account from there.  No new messages!  I noticed that some of these emails don't spell out the link but say click here.  One I got today showed the link address and it was irs.com.something else.  All of these messages had irs.gov as the sender, it was the links that were suspicious.  Beware.

[Pacun]

Catherine,

Please remove the link. If there is information you would like to share, please post it as text.

[jklcpa]

Catherine's link is safe. It is to a website that she follows called "Fellowship of the Minds".  Below are the contents of the page she linked to:

Do not open email from Interfax! – it contains a virus

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 11 Comments

Interfax is a Russian non-governmental news agency based in Moscow, founded in 1989 by officials from Moscow Radio.

It is part of the Interfax Information Service Group, a group of approximately 30 companies that consist of national, regional and branch information agencies under the Interfax name. It employs around 1,000 journalists and produces over 1,500 stories daily.

Here’s an alert posted on Interfax’s website:

Virus Emails coming from InterFAX – DO NOT OPEN

Please DO NOT OPEN virus emails appearing to arrive from Interfax [email protected].

It has come to our attention that an unknown third party is sending malicious emails which contain a javascript virus. The email is spoofed to look as though it was sent from the email address [email protected].

This is NOT an email sent by InterFAX, and you should NOT open the attached file.

If you get any email posing as being sent by Interfax, DO NOT OPEN IT. Delete it.

If you open the attachment, you will need to reinstall your operating system to eliminate the virus, or maybe worse, as the virus may get embedded into your files.

H/t Will S.

~Eowyn

[Roberts]

I received a virus just yesterday in what I thought was a pdf file. If you get one - be sure and do a bootscan of your startup because those little suckers are deeply hidden. Avast has an easy boot scan and it does a great / free job.

[Catherine]

Thank you, @jklcpa -- I should have been MUCH more clear about the link going  to an explanatory page.  

Folks, please be sure that I would NEVER knowingly paste in a link that could harm ANY of you.

My apologies for my lack of clarity.