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The Nogales Police Department is warning the public to avoid falling victim to an on-going mass e-mail scam wherein computer users receive unsolicited e-mails asking that they answer questions because their IP-address is being monitored.

Numerous emails are being sent via different identities of Law Enforcement, examples, FBI, Phoenix Police Department, and other Law Enforcement Identities claiming that these agencies are monitoring their internet use and that they have accessed illegal websites. The e-mails then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions.

The e-mails appear to be sent from the following addresses, mail@fbi.gov, post@fbi.gov, admin@fbi.gov, mail@phoenixpolice.gov,. There may be other similarly styled addresses. The recipient is asked to open a zip attachment which contains a variant of the w32 sober virus, the w32 Trojan virus, and other viruses. If the program within the zip file is executed the virus will then launch and may affect the users computer.

The e-mail tells the user that the Law Enforcement Identity has been logging the users IP-address on more than 30 illegal websites. It then requests that the user answer some important questions. The questions are attached to the zip file which at the time that the questions are launched the virus is activated.

The e-mails are not coming from any Law Enforcement identity. The recipients of the solicitation should know that no Law Enforcement Identity engages in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner.

Opening an e-mail attachment from an unknown sender is a risky and dangerous endeavor, as such attachments frequently contains viruses that can infect the recipients computer and thus begin to send personal and vital information via the internet to foreign computers.

The Nogales Police Department encourages computer users not to open such attachments.

For detailed information on the effect of running these virus please log on to http://www.cert.org