Have you received an link or a attachment from an unknown contact which claims that he or she has a new photo for you? Then beware, this could be the dangerous “My New Photo” malware which is currently circulating the internet. The “My New Photo” malware is send to email accounts and unaware internet users with the goal to infect them with a backdoor for the hackers.
Recently we received a “My New Photo” email in our inbox, the “My New Photo” email explains that a young lady has send us a personal picture, the only thing which we need to do is open the zip file which holds the picture of the claimed young lady.
The email holds the following text:
My new photo , send u photo 😉
We decided to run the “My New Photo” attachment through the Virustotal website, and the results were not shocking. The “my_new_photo3482374823749823.zip” attachment triggered an alert at 35 out of 57 Antivirus scanners. The alerts claimed that the “my_new_photo3482374823749823.zip” attachment holds code that has been identified as malware.
Cybercriminals will try to infect unaware internet users by sending them malicious files and links, the cybercriminals do this as it will allow them to generate an income from the information they steal and the victims that they infect. It is always wise to scan random files with an antivirus scanner, if you do not have one, then simply use the VirusTotal website to scan malicious sites and domains.
The VirusTotal website is a free environment which allows you to run a malware check via 57 Antivirus services. This means that you will get a clear insight in the file that you uploaded. If the file is malicious, you will get warned, if the file is clean, you will be informed about it. I strongly urge everyone to stay vigilant and aware for these type of scams.