Sponsor for PC Pals Forum

Author Topic: Obama malware still spreading  (Read 446 times)

Offline Clive

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 73669
  • Won Quiz of the Year 2015,2016,2017, 2020, 2021
Obama malware still spreading
« on: November 06, 2008, 15:17 »
Though the presidential race is over, cybercriminals are still exploiting interest in Barack Obama and John McCain in order to spread malware.

Several security firms have issued warnings about malicious programs attempting to infect PCs in the wild.

McAfee has warned of an executable file attached to emails that has an American flag as its icon.

"It turns out this BarackObama.exe is actually the familiar PWS-Banker Trojan, which steals passwords and other user data about bank accounts and sends the information to the malware writer," said Pedro Bueno of McAfee.

F-Secure is alerting surfers to a spam email campaign that includes a link that could compromise the security of your PC if clicked.

"The link points to a website that looks as if it contains a video and, to view it, the user has to download a 'new' flash player, adobe_flash9.exe," said Patrik Runald of F-Secure.

However, this is also a Trojan that steals confidential information and uploads it to a server based in the Ukraine, the company said.

Trend Micro has also monitored this spam campaign and said that the link comes sent in emails that claim to bring news of Obama's victory.

"Obama's victory marks a new political era, not only for the US, but also worldwide – truly one historical event that cybercriminals will not pass up. The presidential race may have ended but, for cybercriminals, it's a brand new race for creating more web-threat attacks," said Carolyn Guevarra of Trend Micro.

Sophos has been tracking spam relating to the US election and estimated that 60 per cent of all unsolicited email sent in the last 24 hours had a presidential theme.

Symantec also unearthed some other Obama-related spam campaigns, including one that offered recipients a free 'Barackumentary' DVD.

"Spammers offered a free DVD about Barack Obama; however, in order to receive this 'free' video, recipients were asked to provide personal credit card details to the sender," Symantec said in its monthly State of Spam report.


www.mcafee.com
www.f-secure.com
www.trendmicro.com
www.sophos.com
www.symantec.com




Show unread posts since last visit.
Sponsor for PC Pals Forum