Swine Flu Spam Mails Fox Users

The outbreak of swine flu has provided hackers a new opportunity to attack your computers.
With the virus fast-spreading and people wanting more information on the pandemic flu and safety, the hackers are capitalising on their fear to spread malicious content.

“The attacks arrive through an unsolicited e-mail message typically containing a subject line related to the swine flu. These e-mail messages may contain a link or an attachment,” said an advisory by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), the cyber security agency operating under the ministry of communications and IT.

“If users click on this link or open the attachment, they may be directed to a phishing website or infected with malicious code,” the CERT added.

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The mails in fact look quite interesting with subject lines like ‘Swine influenza: frequently asked questions.pdf’, inviting users to click to know more about the subject.

“This is as an e-mail with attachment and being used to drop malware on computers. It takes advantage of a vulnerability in Adobe (a software) to drop a malicious ‘infostealer’ Trojan on the user’s computer,” said CERT.

“This is then used to steal personal information, such as credit card number and online bank credentials.”

Among some of the eye-catching subject lines that will tempt a user to click on the link include: ‘Madonna caught swine flu!’, ‘Swine flu worldwide!’ and ‘Swine flu in Hollywood!’

The CERT added that instances of such malicious attacks might increase with a number of new websites being registered with the term ‘swine flu’ included in them.

“Right now they are not used for anything, but it is anticipated that at some point, these sites may be used for spamming purposes, perhaps advertisements or even greater malicious use,” it added. (IANS)