Symantec just put this out and I thought you might be interested. They are seeing a lot of hackers using Upatre and Ponik malware over the last couple of months, delivered by spam email blasts targeted at various organizations. They use social engineering to make users click on links. Since late November, Symantec Security Response has seen a spike in the number of malicious emails using this tactic to install malware. Over the last six months, there were relatively few spam emails containing malicious links. For example, in October, only seven percent of malicious spam emails contained links. That number jumped to 41 percent in November and has continued to climb in early December. Check out their blog post here.
It's a good idea to step users through effective security awareness training so that they do not fall for these types of phishing attacks. Find out how affordable this is for your organization:
