25 Oct 2004
Beware the bogus Red Hat security update email, warns Sophos
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| The bogus email claims to come from Red Hat. |
Experts at Sophos have warned users of Red Hat Linux to be wary
of a bogus email which purports to be an official security update
for the operating system.
The fake email claims to come from security@redhat.com, and
arrives with the subject line: "RedHat: Buffer Overflow in 'ls' and
'mkdir'".
Contained inside the email are instructions on how to load and
install a 'security patch'. However, Red Hat has advised that its
real security messages are sent from secalert@redhat.com and are
always digitally signed.
"Someone in the computer underground is trying to dupe innocent
Red Hat Linux users into running potentially malicious code," said
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Everyone
who is responsible for the security of computer systems should take
care to ensure they are following legitimate advice, and not
falling for this kind of confidence trick."
Earlier this year the W32/Sober-D virus posed as a security patch
from Microsoft in an attempt to fool users of Microsoft
Windows.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.