Latest Storm Spam Campaign Aims at NFL Fans

Spammers have launched a new wave of malicious spam mails to aim their attack on NFL fans, warns Internet content and e-mail security provider Marshal.

The outbreak has intentionally taken effect at the time when the NFL season has just started, according to the TRACE team at Marshal. The spam message entices recipients to visit a fake NFL Website offering them a 'Free NFL Game Tracker' that would supposedly provide the latest game results.

There is, however, no utility of the tracker for it is a malicious variant of the Storm Trojan. When users unwittingly download the tracker, they actually install the Trojan which steal data stored on their systems and also create backdoors for the attacker to access the machine.

This new scam offering the NFL tracker not only targets enthusiastic NFL supporters but also exploits people's keen interest for Fantasy Leagues on the Web, said Bradley Anstis, Director of product management at Marshal. ComputerWeekly published this in news on September 11, 2007. The Storm Gang creators appears to be expert at exploiting people using the Internet by pulling innocent Web surfers into their cunning traps. Thus, the attacks on the Fantasy Leagues and NFL are no surprise, Anstis said.

The NFL Storm-loaded spam mails comprise of 1-2% of total spam. The Storm Gang produces 20% of the global spam traffic, which is approximately equal to the total spam that US generates in a single day. The Storm Gang-controlled botnet consists of PCs between one and five million, a figure estimated on the basis of different industry statistics, according to the security company.

The Storm Gang operated three consecutive scams during the last three days of the end week of August 2007. The Storm botnet distributed bulk e-mails offering 'Tor' - an application that lets users to interact over the Internet without revealing their identity. Next, the spammers launched the YouTube scam, which had made its first appearance in the third week of August 2007. Then they launched the NFL scam on September 9, 2007.

Marshal TRACE suggests users to delete any message with a link that comes from an unknown source.

Related article: Latest Scam - Emails Threatening Death to Recipients

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