Tens of thousands of emails sent on Thursday that asked recipients to volunteer for the Democratic Party ahead of the November U.S. election actually came from email scammers and carry malicious software, according to researchers at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.
The emails borrow language from the website of the Democratic National Committee and seek to leverage interest in the U.S. presidential election following the first televised debate Tuesday between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic contender Joe Biden, said Sherrod DeGrippo, senior director of threat research at Proofpoint.
The Word document attached to the spam contains miniature programs known as macros that, if enabled by the recipient, install a password-stealing program known as Emotet, DeGrippo said.