Beware of “spear-phishing” emails

Attendees at a recent international gathering were the targets of a “spear-phishing” attacks. These bogus targeted emails claimed to come from the IMF, but actually originated from “front com” (comfrontt@gmail.com) and carried the subject line: “2009 WB/IMF Annual Meetings - Delegate Registration - Registration Confirmation”. The text in the email asked the recipient to confirm his or her attendance at the meetings and included an infected PDF attachment. If opened, the PDF file could have compromised the security of the reader’s computer.

If you receive such spear-phishing email, do not open anything attached to it. If you have already received one and opened the PDF attachment, you should contact your IT Security area immediately. Genuine emails from the World Bank or IMF are addressed to only one person (on the To: line) and come from a worldbank.org or imf.org address.