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Criminals Hack CEOs With Fake Subpoenas

Security researchers say that thousands have fallen victim to an e-mail scam in which senior managers are told that they have been sued in federal court and must click on a Web link to download court documents.

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)

The malware used in this scam was not identified by the majority of antivirus companies, although most were updating their software to flag it, Bambenek added.

By Monday afternoon, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts had posted a note to its Web site, warning of the fake e-mails. "This is not a valid subpoena," said Karen Redmond, a spokeswoman with the office. "Subpoenas are not issued like that to individuals unless they're a party in the case."

The U.S. federal court system heavily relies on e-mail messages to help lawyers communicate with each other and the court throughout cases, and IT staff in legal firms have traditionally had to work hard to make sure that these messages are not blocked by spam filters. Now they'll have one more thing to worry about: whether the court notices they're getting are legitimate notices or an online attack.

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