I received several copies this morning (in different email accounts) of an email that claimed to be from the United Parcel Service (UPS). Here’s the text of one of them (The “From” name and “Subject” varies, but contains “UPS Tracking Number”):
Dear customer!
The courier company was not able to deliver your parcel by your address.
Cause: Error in shipping address.You may pickup the parcel at our post office personaly!
Please attention!
The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.
Please print this label to get this package at our post office.Please do not reply to this e-mail, it is an unmonitored mailbox.
Thank you.
United Parcel Service of America.
My first hint that something was amiss was because I live in Germany, so “United Parcel Service of America” wouldn’t be delivering to my home…
To make a long story short, don’t open that shipping label. If you do, you will have infected your computer with Trojan.Win32.Bredolab.Gen.1(v) (as identified by Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE).
If you did open it, you can get a fully functional 30 day free trial of Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware software by clicking here (you can also get a copy if you aren’t infected… 
You should have both anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer, and if you don’t, VIPRE is an effective yet economical solution — and comes with full support from Sunbelt). While I didn’t purposely infect my computer to test this, I’m pretty sure that VIPRE will be able to at least quarantine the infection (just be sure to update the definitions and run a full system scan, and let the scan complete itself. You might be surprised at what it finds — and neutralizes).
You do have to give Sunbelt Software a good email address in order to get your license key, but from past experience with Sunbelt, I can vouch for the fact that they won’t spam you or flood your Inbox with unwanted emails. After all, they are an award winning security company and take pride in their reputation… they aren’t about to ruin it by sending you a bunch of junk emails (but do expect a “reminder” when your 30 day trial is about to expire, along with an offer to purchase a one year license — which is very economically priced. They even offer a license that will cover all the computers in your house, which is the license that I purchased and use. And unlike other companies, there’s no “automatic renewal” or “forced continuity” — you have to specifically go back to them every year and renew your license. That’s a good thing!).
Stay safe out there…
P.S. — Just for fun, let’s look at a few more indicators that this is an email you don’t want to respond to:
- UPS doesn’t notify customers by email (as far as I know).
- UPS is not the Post Office!
- “deliver your parcel by your address” — bad grammar (how about, “deliver your parcel to your address”?).
- “Personaly” is spelled wrong.
- “Please attention!” — This is not a phrase that is used in normal U.S. English; however, it is a phrase that I might expect to hear from somebody whose native tongue is not English (and UPS would most likely use native English speakers for their correspondence within the U.S.).
Hope this helps you better identify spam!
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