Google Issues Alert against Malware Embedded Mails

The sudden demise of famous pop star Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009 forced Google to alert Internet users about the potential malware attacks.

As per the news reports, the news of Jackson's hospitalization and then his death made people to search news on Google that resulted into display of a page that states - 'search engine couldn't process the request as it resembled to automated requests from spyware application or a computer virus.' The page asked people searching for news to enter CAPTCHA code to continue their search.

According to a Google spokesman, when a user gets a large volume of searches, an interstitial page pops-up to ascertain that he is safe from attack. The volumes looking for information of Michael Jackson in the night found a page that seemed to have slowed down things for a short time period.

On being asked how Google identified the volume of searches from other breaking news events, the Google spokesman said that the spike or 'volcanic' (the term used by the Google Trends Labs) project to show the highest level of search volumes. This is among the highest spikes ever seen in recent time, said the spokesman.

On the other side, spammers have not wasted time in exploiting the sudden demise of Michael Jackson to execute an e-mail campaign. Security experts have warned that malware-embedded e-mails based on the topic of death of the King of Pop are circulating on the internet.

Security experts at the SANS Institute Internet Storm Centre and McAfee have advised network engineers and users to be careful of malware and spam attacks that leverage on the interest in the death of Jackson to spread malware or to promote fake drugs sites.

Moreover, events that generate a lot of interest in people and natural calamities quickly followed by malware-embedded scams using titles-based on these events. Every time a natural catastrophe befallen or news about a celebrity proliferate in media, malware writers quickly capitalize on the situation and launch attacks to make money.

Similarly, malware authors crafted spam based on events like 2005 London transport bombing attack, 2004 Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the execution of Saddam Hussein to install malware on users' computers.

Related article: Google Rectifies Gmail flaw in Three Days

» SPAMfighter News - 7/7/2009