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| The latest Trojan distribution feeds on interest
in David Beckham and his popstar wife Victoria |
Experts at Sophos have warned computer users that a file posing
as photographic evidence that international soccer star David
Beckham has been having an affair is in fact infected by the
Hackarmy
Trojan horse.
Thousands of messages have been posted onto internet message
boards and usenet newsgroups claiming that the British football
player, who is married to former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, has
been photographed in a compromising position. The Trojan
distribution comes amid continuing rumours in the tabloid press
about the state of the Beckhams' marriage.
The messages point to a website where a file can be downloaded,
purporting to contain photographs. In reality the file contains a
Trojan horse which can allow hackers to gain remote control of an
innocent computer.
A typical message reads as follows:
David Beckham of Real Madrid was caught by photographers
with his pants down. Early in the morning he was photographed with
a Spanish hooker in a rather compromising position. Photos yet to
hit the newspapers have been released here.
<url removed>
"Hackers and virus writers will try all kinds of tricks to
entice people into downloading their malicious code - now they are
trying to suggest that England's football captain David Beckham has
been playing away from home," said Graham Cluley, senior technology
consultant for Sophos. "The public's appetite for salacious gossip
about the private life of the Beckhams might lead some into an
unpleasant computer infection."
Sophos continues to recommend computer users practise safe computing as well as running
up-to-date anti-virus software.
The people behind Hackarmy have used similar tricks to entice
unsuspecting users into infection in the past - having claimed in
previous distributions of the Trojan horse that Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Osama Bin Laden had
been found dead.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.