Viruses appear to trick users into faxing personal data

Hackers have added the ability to deceive users with an email asking to fax personal information data to fake security investigators.

In the new virus, an attacker sends an e-mail warning from an online payment service PayPal, warned by Sophos security experts. These e-mails inform someone who has corrected the recipient's password and asked them to attend the investigation.

According to Sophos, e-mails guide users to a Microsoft Word-leased document on a Web site and ask them to fill out a survey form and fax it to a toll-free number. Credit card information is required in the survey form.

Graham Cluley, a Sophos technology consultant, said this is a new hack for hackers to make users suspicious of e-mails asking them to fill out personal sensitive information online.

He said Sophos has seen a few cases in the past few days, hackers try to use a new method for those who have learned about filling out forms online. They hope that it will be safer to fax the content.

This seems to be a foolish way of hackers, because authorities can easily detect phone numbers. But it is still unclear whether they hire a toll-free phone number and quickly give up the number or use fake phone numbers or satellite phones.

According to Cluley, Trojan viruses and computer worms have become popular because users know the information could be fake so this is a trend for hackers to perform attacks.