‘Tabloid’ spam is worm’s newest turn

No, presidential candidate Barack Obama was not found dead in a “shock accident.” John McCain was not “found unconscious in a toilet.” Will Smith wasn’t “found dead in bathtub” either. And Britney Spears has not broken her arm in a “freak poolside accident.”

The truth is quite a bit more subtle. A Microsoft security upgrade in April largely dismantled a network of hijacked computers used by criminals to send spam, and the hackers are desperately trying to rebuild it. To entice users to click on the links that will infect their computers with the notorious Storm worm, they have dispatched an avalanche of e-mail with fantastic news headlines in recent weeks. The average Net user is getting about 60 of the phony news bulletins per day, says the security firm MessageLabs.

Source: Red Tape Chronicles

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 10:51 am and is filed under Information Literacy, Search News, Technology and Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.