Hunt for Ashley Greene’s Controversial Images May Not Be Wise

Security alerts issued by the security firm Sophos have warned the PC users not to get driven by their curiosity as hackers are again using a hot and sensational topic to spread malware.

According to the reports, nude photos of Twilight-fame Ashley Greene first appeared on PerezHilton.com prior to their removal on the plea of Greene's legal team. But the period of time for which the pictures were available on the Internet, users had been able to download the copies of those pictures. In wake of this, fraudsters are looking in no mood to leave any opportunity of letting this hot topic slip away from their hands.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant, Sophos, said that hackers are using Internet message boards and forums to post malicious links asserting to point to the pictures of Ashley Greene, reported v3.co.uk on August 14, 2009. The links actually direct to malicious sites.

Some of the malware detected, like OSX/Jahlav-C, is known to even allow the hacker to gain control of the compromised PC.

Cluley noted that even a Windows user should not think that he is safe. The webpage detects whether a user is visiting from a Mac or a Windows computer, thus serving appropriate malware to the user. This means if a user visits the malicious website on Windows PC, he will face infection from Mal/EncPk-JD, which is contained in a file - flash-plugin.45082.exe.

Cluley advised Greene fans that if they really admire her, then they should better go and watch her movies on DVD or in cinema instead of hunting her nude images on Internet.

Anyway, it is not the first instance of hackers exploiting sensational news stories of nude female celebrity captured on camera. At the end of July 2009, hackers made attempts to attract Internet users into downloading malicious code by promising them to provide nude video footage of the ESPN reporter Erin Andrews.

Commenting on the issue, security experts stated that it would be really foolish of fans to hunt for Greene's photos on the Internet as just a click could sufficiently download the malware.

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» SPAMfighter News - 8/28/2009