Hoax ‘Gordon Brown’ Spam E-mail Circulating over the Internet

As per the warning issued by the security firm, Sophos, users are informed of a hoax e-mail with a smiling image of Gordon brown, UK's Prime Minister, will contaminate their systems.

According to that forged e-mail, e-mails carrying image files of a smiling Gordon Brown are circulating online, but if anyone opens them, it will lead to the collapse of his/her PC that'll be un-remediable.

In addition, the e-mail also warns that nobody should click on the embedded attachment in the e-mails since it's infected with a virus that McAfee, another security firm, detected. The e-mail then suggests its recipient to forward it to his/her family, friends and other acquaintances.

Hence, people are unknowingly passing on the hoax alert, trusting everything stated in the e-mail to be true and warning all the people in their address boxes to protect their PCs from the alleged virus.

As stated by Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, the incident wasn't simply something to be treated with a smile and shrugging of the shoulders. According to him, the problem related to e-mail jokes involving viruses, was that some individuals didn't perceive their other side. Even prior to realizing the significance of the situation, people spread the message to others as an authentic security alert, as reported by InfoSecurity on February 5, 2010.

Cluley further added that it wasn't just that bandwidth and time were wasted, but that it could as well lead to users acting desperately for cleansing their PCs off a virus that mightn't had ever existed.

Furthermore, Cluley commented that it was the most recent among the sequence of fake, malware-laden e-mails that was observed during the past two decades. In all the cases, the spammers exploited Internet users' inclination for protecting their friends, colleagues and family via passing on an alert without first verifying their facts, he explained, according to Cluley's blog published by Sophos on February 5, 2010.

Researchers have noted that the current fake e-mail carry content quite same as that of the 2006 virus hoax that involved the Olympic Torch.

Hence, Cluley urges e-mail recipients that they should delete it, and inform others that its warning is actually a false one.

» SPAMfighter News - 15-02-2010

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