Tech & Biz

Trojan Horse Uses Virginia Tragedy as Bait

by ricknight | April 19, 2007 at 09:16 am

471 views | 5 Recommendations | 3 comments

Spammers and hackers are using the slayings at Virginia Tech as a gory lure to infect computers with malicious software, security experts noted Thursday.

While the video made by gunman Cho Seung-hui prior to the killing of 33 people on Monday was widely posted on news Web sites and YouTube.com, spam e-mails were intercepted Wednesday night purporting to link to the footage on a Brazilian Web site, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, at security vendor Sophos PLC.

If clicked, the link caused a computer to automatically download a malicious screensaver, called TERROR_EM_VIRGINIA.scr by Sophos, which installs a Trojan horse program that collects banking details, Cluley said.

Just when you think we've hit the bottom, humanity starts to dig even lower...

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Obi-Akpere

at 09:46 on April 19th, 2007

Thanks Accrama,

This is a nice one, I wish people get to know about this in time and protect their PCs from this attack.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Obi-Akpere

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:51 on April 19th, 2007

ricknight, you've convinced me you've done the work - it's authentic. I also think that you've been fair and thorough. I didn't get the sense that you were hiding your biases, or passing off other's work as your own. Or worse -- getting paid by those you cover -- so it's transparent and independent. I also think you deserve praise for sharing this news item with us.Good stuff.