PSA: Osama: not captured; Michael Jackson: no suicide; SDMB: great antivirus

[GIGObuster]

http://informationweek.securitypipeline.com/news/164302247

E-mail claiming that pop star Michael Jackson has attempted suicide is just another attempt by hackers to plant malicious code, a security firm warned Friday.
Jackson is awaiting the verdict in a California case in which he’s been accused of child molestation.

Arriving with the subject head of “Re: Suicidal aattempt” and text that read “Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt,” the mass-mailed message included a link to a site for more information. That site, however, secreted installs a pair of Trojan horses, one opens a remote backdoor that the attacker can use to plant even more malicious code.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2137758/jacko-suicide-note-trojan

This is not the first time that self-styled ‘king of pop’ Jackson has been used as a hook by hackers. In 2004 a link purporting to show the singer’s home videos used a similar tactic to infect PCs with the Hackarmy Trojan.

Hackarmy has been used repeatedly in this kind of attack, and has demonstrated the effectiveness of headline-grabbing spam by using hooks like Osama Bin Laden, American hostage Nick Berg and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“We find that once this type of spam lands in employees’ inboxes, all common sense about suspicious emails goes out the window,” said Mark Herbert, founder of managed email security firm intY.

“Against their better judgement, people will follow the link that downloads a dangerous Trojan onto their computer. Businesses need to continually warn employees to be on their guard.”

Just a warning for all computer users out there (Mac users excluded… for now) and also to commend the SDMB for indirectly protecting me from a trojan attack.

Somehow, the Osama trojan got through our office security and the message with attachment was in my mailbox the other day…

I just figured that that bit of news would not be missed by the SDMB, so before opening the attachment I looked for the threads that should have popped and found nothing… THEN I remembered about the Osama trojan, I thought originally that it could not be the one, since it was already old hat for the security IT department, I guess it was not. :smack:

Knowing that the SDMB would be on a bit of news like that like a leech on steroids that got into a blood bank, I then knew it was the trojan, message was deleted then.

So, thank you Cecil! And the Chicago Reader too!

[GIGObuster]

E! channel report:

Jackson Viral, Not Suicidal

Fot a title like that, we need something between :rolleyes: and

[carnivorousplant]

Remember not to surf the net with an Administrative account, Ladies and Gentlemen.