This email has been around for at least a couple years. Full text:

From: ICS Monitoring Team
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 2:48 AM
To: [email address]
Subject: Your internet access is going to get suspended

Attachment: report.zip

Your internet access is going to get suspended

The Internet Service Provider Consorcium was made to protect the rights of software authors, artists.
We conduct regular wiretapping on our networks, to monitor criminal acts.

We are aware of your illegal activities on the internet wich were originating from

You can check the report of your activities in the past 6 month that we have attached. We strongly advise you to stop your activities regarding the illegal downloading of copyrighted material of your internet access will be suspended.

Sincerely
ICS Monitoring Team

If you get this message, or anything similar, delete it immediately, and whatever you do, don’t open that attachment. It’s a virus.

I don’t know exactly what sort of malware is attached, but if I had to guess, I would assume it contained some form software that could be used to remotely gain control of your computer. These “zombie computers” can then be used as part of a “botnet” to commit other crimes. In fact, a search for “ICS Monitoring Team” returned at least one link that appeared to be software that would allow you to remotely control other computers on a network.

They were really going for the jugular with this one, weren’t they? The fact is, a lot of people download copyrighted material, so they’ve got a lot of potential victims. Your first reaction upon reading something like this would probably be a small jolt of panic, whether you’ve been downloading stuff or not. The social engineering angle here is as brilliant as the grammar and spelling are execrable. “Consorcium?” Really?

Whatever you’ve been getting up to online, this message isn’t related to it. It’s just another attempt to infect computers with some kind of bad juju. I’m not saying you should keep ripping off copyright holders. Sometimes those BitTorrents are infected with stuff, too. And remember that one kid the entire music industry practically wanted to execute nine or ten years ago? People run into trouble that way.

However, if you do get caught, most likely your Internet service provider will just shut you down with very little explanation beyond “terms of service violations.” Some third party isn’t going to be given that power, at least not in the run-of-the-mill instances.