Hackers Use Naked Britney Spears Videos to Lure Users

The group of spammers targeting stars is back in action. During this current series of offensive spam, they lure computer users with "latest video of Britney in the nude" as the heading.

Upon clicking open the subject matter of the spam message, the end user is simply asked to open the attachment, which holds an executable file in the compressed zip file. Unlike its precursor, anti-virus scanners are not able to locate this new type of downloader readily.

However, the attachment in reality includes a malevolent program dubbed as Troj/PushDo-Gen that aims Microsoft Windows. Whenever any of the Troj/Pushdo-Gen family is deployed, it drops more malware and executes another file in store, generally identified as Troj/Pushu-Gen or Mal/Basine-C.

Then it normally drops additional files that are exploited to give concealment for the malicious code. This file dropped in memory will also typically try to insert more malware within the Internet Explorer.

After its run, the downloaders recover the added malware that has a virus code similar to the spambots earlier utilized by the celebrity spammers group. After sometime, the affected computer will become component of the malevolent spam-mailing botnet. Therefore, the Britney bot continues its work.

There's a continuous flood of malware and spam gifting photographs of the in celebrities in different stages of nudity. Is it possible for anybody to be duped by this? Concluding from the numerous times the similar topic has been utilized, the reply is perhaps Yes, posted SophosLabs' Director Mark Harris in the blog forum of SophosLabs, as reported by Webusers on November 26, 2007.

The Britney botnet attacked computers for a span of eight-and-a-half hours, both on November 25, 2007 and November 26, 2007. Nevertheless, if computer users are prudent and stop opening unidentified attachments, they can evade this specific form of malicious software.

Messages purporting to exhibit celebrities in various stages of nudity are quite outdated, but still seems to be a successful method of duping several users into executing a program created to permit cyber-terrorists to illegally access PCs. The photographs of several stars such as Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, and Natalie Portman have been used in the past as lure.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 12/11/2007