Security News > 2020 > January > Email malware targets U.S. senator and military

Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm about Emotet, a powerful email malware that is now being used to attack U.S. government and military targets.

"We track it heavily, as it's continuing to spin up and send out email messages, we pick up on that quickly. Emotet is everywhere. I see Emotet infections and Emotet traffic happening all the time. It's an opportunistic threat, so as it comprises a system, harvest email addresses off of it and use other email addresses to attack."

Schultz wrote in his blog post that Emotet was "One of the most prolific vehicles for delivering malware that we have seen in modern times," because it takes stock of the people who you email with the most and sends those people malicious messages, understanding that people are more likely to open emails from friends and longtime colleagues.

Cisco Talos researchers showed that Emotet has a remarkable ability to mimic email language, even adding previous email threads to a message as well as contact information.

Emotet's ability to mimic email lingo and penchant for responding to email threads makes it difficult for anti-spam systems to stop.

News URL

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/email-malware-targets-u-s-senator-and-military/#ftag=RSS56d97e7