Internet Users Targeted by New Spam Email Campaign - Sunbelt

'Sunbelt' Security experts alerts the users against a new spam email campaign, which is spreading on the Internet and targets naïve users.

It has been highlighted by the security firm that spam emails imitating to be registration information from the famous free image hosting website ImageShack are getting into user mailboxes, and making the users to follow particular links to some malicious website, which leads to downloading malicious computer Trojan.

The available links in reality is from an Australian art gallery website, which was hacked by the cybercriminals, as per Sunbelt experts.

Sunbelt further states that, visiting such URLs, directs the users to a site applying a common Flash Player update social engineering hoax. The interesting part of such a trick is the update warning given by the Flash Player, which in reality poses like a GIF image downloaded from the legal thecoca-colacompany.com website. In this case, only the link is changed to initiate a fast downloading of the malicious virus named adobe_flash_install.exe.

As per security expert Christopher Boyd, Sunbelt, installation of such files will make the user a victim of Zbot infection. They detected such file as Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT., according to the report of softpedia.com on 26th July,2010.

According to the Sunbelt security experts, the finding rates of such a file are great, on VirusTotal, which is 39 out of 42.

In the meantime, the users are advised by Boyd to check the email and highlights in details, as at first the email can look quite authentic, but after scrutinizing the offered registration link, it comes out that it is actually is not from ImageShack.

It has also been advised by the experts that the username and password written on the email could be false. Chris Boyd got one such email, and stated that, in no way he can use the provided username and password combination, even after being registered to it, as per the report published by net-security.org on 26th July, 2010.

Lastly Boyd added that, the users should be alert of such emails in the near future, as it is possible that the cybercriminals continue delivering the same email, containing some other malicious link, directing to other malware and applying other technique.

Related article: Internet Threat Volumes Overwhelm Security Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 8/6/2010