Student Loan Forgiveness Scam Offers Up Malware

If you have student loans, you are one of 42 million graduates that are going to be the target of a new scam campaign that will try to bilk you out of hundreds of dollars.

The spam campaign delivers the Ascesso malware which uses rootkit techniques, injects code into services.exe and downloads remote files.

One such campaign asks victims to call a phone number where the scammers are told to purchase an iTunes gift card worth hundreds of dollars to serve as an "application fee."

“The student loan scam spam comes in a variety of forms but typically offers a reduction in student debt, consolidation of debt, or student loan forgiveness," according to the Symantec report. "The scam emails will entice readers with offers that seem, and are, too good to be true, such as qualifying for zero payment or having their entire loan forgiven. Others may try to charge for services that can be accessed for free from the government, your lender, college, university, or other sources.”

Most all of the campaigns result in the download of the Ascesso malware which will launch secondary attacks, including malware campaigns, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) offensives, and more.

Experts advise that graduates should look only to U.S. government student loan forgiveness programs, as these don't ask for fees.

Source: SCMagazine