Emotet Trojan considerably increased in September

Security researchers from different parts of the world have issued security warnings sounding the alarm about an unusual increase in the activity of the Emotet Trojan during these times of crisis and confinement have taken advantage of this according to security companies.

Emotet is a multi-faceted Trojan that spreads via infected emails. During the weeks of September, strong growth in Emotet activity was detected, especially in New Zealand, Japan and France. The New Zealand CERT warned of an increase in malicious emails linked to Emotet, and the Japan CERT echoed these statements warning that it had seen a sudden increase in emails with .jp domains that were being used to spam and spread the infection.

The emails contain malicious attachments or links for the user to download, explained the New Zealand Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). “These links and attachments look like messages, financial documents or shipping information, resume, scanned documents or legitimate COVID-19 information as we have seen in previous articles of these malicious files and the best thing you can do is ignore them as they will never be know where you can find these.

The malicious program, in this new wave of attacks, has adjusted its distribution techniques: first they filter the conversations and attachments of the affected emails, and then they use this information to design fraudulent emails that appear to continue an existing conversation or come from a contact With which they have been having communications by mail following this when they do not carry out such elaborate attacks, they pose as well-known and popular entities to generate trust in their victims.

Experts on these topics have proposed some standard prevention measures, such as disabling Macros in MS Office, installing antivirus solutions and keeping them up to date, configuring email filters and making use of white lists.

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