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President-elect Barack Obama has prompted another landslide – this time in spam instead of votes.
On Wednesday, SophosLabs discovered a massive spam attack that stems from an e-mail offering news and a video clip from Obama's victory.
SophosLabs, a U.K.-based provider of antispam and antivirus software (compare Messaging Security products), says this piece of malware represents as much as 60% of the malicious spam that was recorded by their spam traps
around the Web today. (Watch a slideshow of spammers in the slammer.)
The e-mails, which claim to come from news@president.com, have subject lines such as "Obama win preferred in world poll."
The e-mail prompts users to click on a link to watch his "amazing speech." If users download Adobe Flash Version 9 as prompted, they are infected with malicious code that allows their systems to be remotely controlled by hackers. The malicious code is a Trojan Horse dubbed Mal/Behav-027 by SophosLabs.
SophosLabs Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley said in a blog post that "it's likely the cybercriminals behind this attack will rotate the malware being served up by this dangerous Web site…My guess is that this is far from the last example we will see of Barack Obama's name and image being abused by malware authors in their greed to infect Internet users."
Comments (5)
They wasted no timeBy Anonymous on November 10, 2008, 9:56 amThe attackers wasted no time on this virus flood. The election ended November 4 at 11 PM EST. This "headline spam" attack started on our servers the next day. I...
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Yep, it was a LandslideBy Anonymous on November 6, 2008, 5:46 pm7,684,023 is the gap (currently) in the popular vote. In terms of population, that number is larger than every city in the U.S. except NYC, and larger than every...
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It was a landslide. Total Delegate count coupled with a 6 milliBy Anonymous on November 6, 2008, 4:41 pmIt was a landslide. Total Delegate count coupled with a 6 million plus advantage in popular vote is a landslide. get over it.
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Beware of Obama spamBy Anonymous on November 6, 2008, 3:49 pmThe "Beware of Obama" part should have been heeded before this point in time. Stand by for the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth from many obamunists.
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Landslide?By Rick on November 6, 2008, 11:57 amA 4% differential in popular vote hardly justifies the landslide hyperbole included in the article. However, given the gullibility of the people duped into voting...
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