Amy follows Osama, MJ in Trojan threat
Curiosity is indeed getting the better of Netizens these days as dead celebrities return to haunt them in the form of online scams. Barely hours after Amy Winehouse’s death, gullible users were clicking links with the supposed “dope behind” the musician’s death. But security agencies and anti-virus companies were upto the task and issued warnings against the malicious attacks.
Informs Jay Thakur, IT consultant with a software giant, “The ‘Amy Winehouse Death’ email contained an image (or in some cases a video) which was actually a malicious software called Infostealer that gathers confidential information from the computer that it’s downloaded onto.”
Similar attacks had been carried out after death of Osama, MJ and fake news of deaths of Jennifer Lopez, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt have been spread in an attempt to get users to click bad links. What is it about a celebrity death that is so lucrative for cybercriminals, and why does this morbid tactic seem to work time and again?
Talking about this tactic of cybercriminals, Gaurav Kanwal, country sales manager, India, Consumer Products and Solutions, Symantec, says, “Cybercriminals follow trending topics on the internet closely and anything that users search for is a potential avenue for them to exploit. And breaking news provides a perfect opportunity where many users are searching for information on the same topic, providing a wide base of unsuspecting potential victims.”
Cybercriminals smartly play on the curiosity of users by sending spam mails with subject lines related to popular celebrities in an attempt to get the gullible user to click the malicious link. Talking about this particular Trojan virus, Kanwal adds, “The Trojan called Infostealer Bancos gathers confidential financial information from the compromised computer. This information is then traded on the online black market, sometimes for as little as `5.”
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