Panda Security Detects PC Virus Using ‘Swine Flu’ for Propagation

Panda Security, a computer security company based in Spain, has issued a warning that online criminals are exploiting fears of 'swine flu' by distributing e-mails that pledge to provide information about the illness, but install a virus on users' computers, as reported by Nzherald on September 14, 2009.

According to the new scam's details, the e-mails deceptively direct recipients to open a given document that claims - 'pharmaceutical companies created the H1N1 virus in a bid to reap large monetary gains from the outbreak.'

But if a user becomes interested and clicks on the document, a virus is loaded on his PC that could steal his private data like those related to bank account. In other words, a banking Trojan infects the user's machine.

According to Panda Security, the total number of e-mails with the malicious Trojan virus being circulated online reached a peak on September 11, 2009.

During an interview, Margaret Chan Head of the World Health Organization, who was asked about conniving theories that leading pharmaceutical companies were responsible for the swine influenza attack, stated that it was beyond her imagination that pharmaceutical companies could trigger an epidemic, as reported by Nzherald on September 14, 2009.

Chan added that it was just weird to think that people getting the misleading spam e-mail would trust that laboratories were behind the disease.

Besides, PandaLabs, the web research facility center of Panda Security, informed on August 26, 2009 that as many as 27% of the virus infested e-mails took advantage of people's apprehensions related to the swine flu.

Ever since the WHO declared the H1N1 influenza or swine flu as an epidemic, rumors about the dreaded illness have been circulating on the Internet. Cyber criminals such as phishers, spammers and malware purveyors are continuously using them to disseminate computer viruses, malware and spam. Panda Security states that over the several months gone by, different phishing campaigns based on the heinous influenza have already hatched.

As the epidemic continues to remain strong worldwide and causes incessant human deaths, Internet crooks are exploiting it unceasingly for executing their nefarious and malicious activities.

Related article: Panda-Like Virus Plagues China’s Internet

» SPAMfighter News - 10/5/2009