Fake iTunes Vouchers! [Virus Warning!]
- By Sean
- 26 May, 2010
- 43 Comments
Hey guys,
Today I received an unusual E-mail that stated that I had purchased a 50 dollar iTunes Gift Card (which I had not). This E-mail had some very suspicious content in it, so I decided to be cautious with it and think it through before doing what it told me.
It told me to download the attached file called “Gift_Cert_231.zip” and run the program inside of that called “Gift_Cert_231.exe” (which I didn’t do, I’m not stupid). It then told me to login to my iTunes after I had ran it and claimed that once I had logged in, 50 dollars would be added to my account.
The E-mail obviously had a virus of some sort in it, my guess is it’s a key-logger which will log all keys pushed and save them to your computer and then sends that file to the maker of the key-logger, and if you followed the steps in the E-mail, the maker now has the password to your iTunes account which means they have the ability to spend your iTunes money.
This is the message that I got:
Hello!
You have received an iTunes Gift Certificate in the amount of $50.00
You can find your certificate code in attachment below.Then you need to open iTunes. Once you verify your account, $50.00 will be credited to your account, so you can start buying music, games, video right away.
iTunes Store.
Now, there is several reasons why I did not do this;
- The sender’s email address was consultants@itunes.com. Now, this seems like an authentic address but these addresses have been spoofed, which means they are not sent by iTunes and in no way represent them.
- The E-mail was not sent directly to me, it was sent to maie-safwat@windowslive.com, which is most likely a spam forwarding address.
- If iTunes had sent it, they would not use ‘consultants@itunes.com’, they would use ‘do_not_reply@itunes.com’.
- iTunes does not make you download applications to redeem vouchers , they would send you a special code for you to enter into their system.
After this happened, I did some research on it and have discovered all of the alias’s that this virus is using to catch it’s virtual prey.
The alias’s are as follows:
- “iTunes Online Products” account@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Products” online.software@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Products” shop.order@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Products” store.order@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Products” technical.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Products” support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” account@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” certificate.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” certificate@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” consultants@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” gifts.certificate@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” gifts@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” internet.shop@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” online.software@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” online.store@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” online.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” products.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” products@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” shop.order@itunes.com
- “iTunes Online Store” technical.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Products” online.services@itunes.com
- “iTunes Products” shop@itunes.com
- “iTunes Products” technical.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Store” gifts.support@itunes.com
- “iTunes Store” your.support@itunes.com
So keep and eye out for them guys!
I hope this helps you avoid getting any virus’s or falling for any traps/scams, just play it safe and remember, if anything seems too good to be true or a bit iffy, research it first and you should be fine.
Copyright © 2013
Thank-you! I got exactly the same email and I was leery about opening it too. This confirmed my suspicions.
Not a problem Shelly, glad to help!
I just got this exact email, but the sender address was different. Mine came from products.support@itunes.com, if I had purchased Apple products, I might have been fooled.
Yeah, some people might get easily fooled if they were just using their iPod or were on the iTunes store.
That address is on the list too.
Thanks for this , i thought it was suspicious since it was in my spam folder but the address looked sort of genuine – so i googled it and it showed me this page – thanks for your help
No problem mate, any time!
Yup…got the same email this morning and googled to find info.Thanks for this. I found it particularly frustrating since it’s my birthday, and I asked everyone for iTunes gift cards. This was definitely not a gift.
Oh man, that would have been confusing!
Thanks so much! Just got that today, actually o.o was a bit creeped out by it. So glad this was posted! Appreciate your help!
No worries, glad I could help!
Thank you so much for this, just had the email and thought this is odd since I don’t own an Ipod. This just goes to show that if it is too good to be true it probably isn’t.
Nice work compiling all the email addresses by the way.
Thanks D, I’m glad I could help!
got one too, from ‘online.support@itunes.com’
Tah for posting, will share this link on facebook x
Awesome, thanks! I’m glad you like it.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sandra Dessureault, Sean Byrnes. Sean Byrnes said: New post on ZA: Fake iTunes Vouchers! [Virus Warning!] – http://b2l.me/w2ya3 [...]
I got:
Thank you for buying iTunes Gift Certificate!
From: iTunes Store Add to Contacts
To: bampaddec@yahoo.ca (not my address)
Gift_Certificate_531.zip (29KB)
Hello!
You have received an iTunes Gift Certificate in the amount of $50.00
You can find your certificate code in attachment below.
Then you need to open iTunes. Once you verify your account, $50.00 will be credited to your account, so you can start buying music, games, video right away.
iTunes Store.
Thanks for posting!
No problem!, you’re welcome.
ahhh i just posted u on my facebook! i had one in my mail box and goggled it before i opened it… and found u!
WHOOP! xxx
Thanks, I’m glad I could help.
Thank you for the Facebook post too!
Recieved one just now, good thing my account alerted me that the mail is one hell of a virus.
Well that was lucky, my account didn’t tell me anything was wrong with it, I had to work it out myself..
Hey..i too got one from support@itunes.com
But I was suspicious, so I deleted and later on found that it was really a spam..
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Well it’s good that you didn’t fall for it then.
Thanks for the info, reached the UK now! you can add your.support@itunes.com to the list of fake address.
Cheers
Adam
No problem!
Ok, thanks. I’ve added it but what was the alias that they went under? I have put it as “iTunes Store” for now but I will change it if it’s different.
I didn’t know about this and i already opened it! what do I do? It’s been a day, and nothing happened yesterday, but today, I’m getting a feeling that the computer’s slightly, but noticably slower. My amazing virus checker wouldn’t detect anything!!!
Well hopefully if nothing happened it might mean that the virus didn’t run properly. But if you got a message from it or something, it might be the virus disguising itself.
Your virus program might be out of date if it didn’t pick it up. Or the virus just didn’t execute, in which-case, you’re safe.
Good luck though, let me know if anything else happens. Btw, just check your iTunes credit and see if it has gone down.
Thanks Sean,
I have had a few of these now, and don’t even use itunes. The email address does look authentic so I was half tempted to open it, but glad I googled to find out more before I did.
Hello!
You have received an iTunes Gift Certificate in the amount of $50.00 You can find your certificate code in attachment below.
Then you need to open iTunes. Once you verify your account, $50.00 will be credited to your account, so you can start buying music, games, video right away.
iTunes Store.
Take care,
Mo
No problem Mo, just glad I could help.
Thanks for the comment.
lol same happened to my friend but it was sent from prizerebel or something saying he had won a £30 voucher. is this a key logger or has he really won something?
It depends; does the email have an attachment or did it come with a code in the email?
If it’s a code, it’s probably real. If it’s an attachment, it’s most likely a virus, there-for, don’t open it.
This isnt anything to do with this but does your battlefield bad company 2 online work for you now?
Well I haven’t tried since then because I took the game back, I wasn’t keeping a game around that didn’t work in the hopes that one day they might fix it.
Have they addressed the issues yet or what?
ive heard things about it. nothing specific but a few patches have been released. if any of your friends have it borrow it and try it to see if it works. it is one of the best games i have ever played. also you you should try the ufc game or wolfenstein.
Cool, hopefully they actually fixed it.. I might rent it for a couple of nights and see if it works now.
I don’t really like the UFC games, Wolfenstein I might like.
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thank you for sharing, i’ve got a few times those emails, and since it was very suspicious, i put them all into junk folder. People need to be alert and avoiding open those zip files.
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