Watch out for the Obama botnet
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Spam, Security on
Everyone is getting excited by the upcoming Barack Obama Presidential inauguration. Everyone, including the Obama spammers it would seem. With less than 24 hours to go until the historic inauguration ceremony, the spammers are busy getting malware loaded messages out with headlines promising amazing news that Obama is standing down before stepping up.
Apparently, if the spammers are to be believed, Obama does not want the responsibility of saving a sinking ship and so has decided to refuse to accept the US Presidency. Of course, every message comes with a link promising the official news from the man himself, and which takes the unsuspecting to a cloned version of the Obama campaign website which comes with a few surprises. The main one being the opportunity to get infected with the Waledec botnet.
Such blended threats are nothing new, however the fact that the whole world is currently reaching something of a climax as far as Obama-madness is concerned is clearly worrying. Given the appetite for any Obama news right now the chances are high that people will let their guards down and the malware in. Waledec is a pretty new botnet, and thought to be the latest creation from the people behind the Storm botnet. It is only a month old, but is continuing to operate in the same way as Storm before it.
“Barack Obama’s inauguration is just one day away. Clearly, there is significant public interest in an event as historic and anticipated as this and the spammers are exploiting it. Spammers have used social engineering ploys like this time and time again to entice spam recipients into clicking on links without thinking. These headlines are designed to catch out recipients by shocking them with the unbelievable,” explained Phil Hay, senior threat analyst for the Marshal8e6 TRACE Labs.
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by - October 5, 2009 on 7:41 am
And before I claim about my hard work for gaining more traffic.
Comment by - November 3, 2009 on 7:10 am
Both the UPI article and the USA Today article have major errors. Both misidentify the worm as an “Internet” worm or a “computer” worm. It is neither. It is a Windows worm.
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 3:46 am
will smith divorce tmz…
[…]Judge Rodgers took time to contemplate whether yet another charm must or ought to not be provided […]…
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 7:24 am
greenpeace mexico oil spill…
[…]well as fencing leader For Each Henrik Ling (1777-1839), who examined massage on China[…]…
Make a comment
Tag cloud
Archives
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Most commented posts
- 80 percent of viruses love Windows 7
165 comments
- Has Microsoft gone mental?
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7?
- Cuil frozen out: market share drops to next to nothing
- Xbox 360 FAIL
- The 24GB RAM Desktop is born
- Use old version of Windows instead of Linux, says teacher
- Microsoft reveals time-based licensing model
- How Marblecake Hacked Time
- Nexus Two - The Next Generation
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Why ecommerce fails (100%)
- Google Chrome stands alone at PWN2OWN (100%)
- Betting on Hubdub technology (100%)
- Has Google gone insane as GMail goes back to beta? (100%)
- Chinese whispers as government implicated in UK hack attacks (100%)
- Crimeware toolkit targets 10,000 trusted sites (100%)
- Black Hat risk to migrating VMs (100%)
- Tough on cyber crime, tough on the causes of cyber crime (100%)
- Firefox 3, Beta 4, Enhancements 900, Tested 5 (100%)
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7? (100%)
