Million dollar burnout features as malware lure
Fake robbery footage punts rogue security app
Posted in Spam, 22nd September 2008 12:19 GMT
Free whitepaper – Application Performance Management:
First it appeared as an art project. Now, over a decade later, it's back from the dead as a malware lure.
In August 1994 musicians Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of the K Foundation burnt a million quid on the Scottish island of Jura as part of an art project, the significance of which has never been properly explained. Fourteen years later malware authors are spamming messages supposedly containing footage of a million dollars going up in smoke.
According to spammed messages, the loot went up in smoke during a failed but pyrotechnically spectacular robbery. In reality, the messages offer nothing more than an archived attachment (called Video.rar) containing a joke program that modifies a screensaver to something resembling the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death and a fake security package that warns of non-existent viral infections.
Screenshots of the email lures and more background on the malware involved can be found in a write-up by Trend Micro here. ®
Register Research on: Application Platforms
Secure Mobile Working
The Impact of IT Security Attitudes
The Evolving Security Landscape
The Register's Green Computing Debate
