Sophos found a photograph of US comedians Dave Attell and Lewis
Black on the malware website.
IT security and control firm Sophos is warning of a widespread
spam campaign that attempts to fool computer users into downloading
a spyware Trojan horse. The emails, which contain phrases such as
'hot photos from my birthday', purport to be linking users to adult
online content, when in fact the links lead to a website containing
the Troj/Pushu-A
Trojan horse, which attempts to steal information from infected PC
owners.
According to Sophos, visitors to the website are encouraged to
download what they believe will be a selection of hardcore adult
photographs in an archive file - in reality the file is a malicious
executable called xxx.exe or foto.exe. When investigating one
website hosting the malware, experts at SophosLabs also discovered
a peculiar
photograph of two US comedians, Lewis Black and Dave Attell,
which is apparently unrelated to either the spam emails or the
malware itself.
"As with all messages offering salacious content, the danger is
that some people may be so excited about the prospect of viewing
the pictures that they'll click before thinking about what might be
in the best interests of their PC's health," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "The comics in the photograph
certainly add a strange twist, though it's unlikely anyone will be
laughing if their PCs are compromised by downloading Pushu."
A typical spam email, pointing to the Pushu
Trojan horse.
"The email spam campaign has been widely distributed, although
thankfully we haven't received many reports of users infected by
the Trojan horse," continued Cluley. "Those that visit the phoney
adult websites risk throwing open their PCs for cybercriminals to
steal information or carry out further online attacks. Thanks to
its continued success rate, it seems likely that this type of
illicit material will be used to tempt people into infection for
some time to come."
Sophos recommends companies automatically update their corporate
virus protection, and run a consolidated
solution to defend against viruses, spyware and spam.
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.