Hackers are using excerpts from BBC news stories as a lure to trick surfers into visiting a website that exploits a new, unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

The spam emails contain excerpts from actual BBC news stories and offer a link to "Read More". Surfers who follow this link are taken to a spoof copy of the BBC story hosted on a maliciously constructed site that exploits the unpatched createTextRange vulnerability in an attempt to install key logging software on victim PCs.

This key logger monitors activity on various financial websites and uploads captured information back to the attacker, security firm Websense warns.

Surfers are advised to avoid responding to spam messages, no matter how enticing. Disabling Active Scripting in IE or using an alternative browser until Microsoft issues a patch are also advisable. ®