Eminem’s Demise News Faked by Cybercriminals

As per reports from security firm Trend Micro's global security research center 'TrendLabs', Internet fraudsters are now attempting to defraud money from aficionados of rapper Eminem by circulating false news of his demise.

The bogus e-mail purports to come from CBS News and informs recipient of the alleged car crash of the rapper. The mail then asks the recipient if he wants the further details regarding this news. It also contains a link to show the recipient the alleged video of the car crash that led to the unfortunate incident.

When the e-mail recipient clicks on the provided link to check out the video, he is redirected to a website which downloads an .exe file on his PC. According to Trend Micro, the downloaded file is a variant of Zbot Trojan called TROJ_ZBOT.HBI.

The security firm claimed that this Trojan variant downloads its copy in the system folder of Windows. In order to evade easy detection, it attaches garbage code to that copy. Then it creates a folder having attributes set to Hidden and System so as to stop users from detecting and removing its elements. The Trojan also modifies a registry entry enabling itself to run automatically with the system startup.

In this regard, a Senior Security Advisor at Trend Micro, Rik Ferguson said that this is yet another incident that shows the extent up to which hackers can go to exploit the innocent users by raising a sense of fear or uncertainty to spread malware, according to the news published by ITALIAN INNOVATION on June 27, 2010.

Ferguson suggested to carefully analyze the rumors and uncertainty associated with those rumors as well as the links provided in the unsolicited e-mails. In case there's any sort of reality in the rumors, then its details would have surely been published on leading news sites. However, it's important to type the address to that site directly into the browser.

Here it is noteworthy that there are many other celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Russell Crowe, whose fake demise news have already been used by cybercriminals to distribute their malicious payload.

Related article: Enormous Computer Breaches Hit Greenville County

» SPAMfighter News - 7/6/2010