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Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Users Beware, Candidate Sex Scandal Spam Campaign Underway

Screenshot of example of email that infects user machines)

You receive an email saying candidate (insert candidate name) was in the Ukraine in 2007 having sex with Ukranian girls and you can even watch the video. Guaranteed to affect the presidential campaign. You click it and your computer has been hacked.
Hackers are using the U.S. presidential elections to infect user's machines with malicious code.

Websense Security Labs
ThreatSeeker Network are warning of emails with fake news of a sex scandal which will adversely affect the candidate in the title and body of the email, offering you a video to watch which will prove their case that the candidate named was involved in a sex scandal.

You click on the video and while watching, hackers are installing malicious applications onto your computer.

The dropper installs 809.exe in the user's Temporary Internet Files folder. Also a Browser Helper Object (BHO) named Siemens32.dll is registered. This is an information-stealing application that posts data to a compromised Finnish travel site, hxxp://*snip*- hotel. com/


Some ways you can protect yourself from being infected by malicious code and hackers are found on a variety of sites.

Never open an attachment from someone you do not know. If in doubt even recognizing the sender, delete the email and send a note to the source asking if they intended to send you the specific email, some virus programs will run through a users email address book and send out virus emails without the users permission or knowledge.

Make sure you have protection software installed on your computer.

More information on protecting your computer from hackers, adware, spyware and malware can be found at Microsoft.

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