Wow! These spammers and hackers just don't quit! I guess I'm going to have to dedicate every Thursday as "Threat Thursday" just to focus on the latest computer security threats and how deal with them.
I posted a blog entry two weeks ago called "Malware Ecards: When Someone Cares Enough to Send Their Very Worst" that outlined a recent surge in spam e-mail that would tempt the recipient to use the embedded link to retrieve an e-card from a loved one. Well, they wouldn't have gotten much love, but some malware would have been executed on their computer.
The latest variant uses the same type of embedded link, but instead of an e-card, the new tactic is to encourage the recipient to use the link to view revealing images or photos. Security software vendor, F-Secure, has a few examples of this new variant on their blog entry for August 18th; so you may want take a look to be prepared.
In closing, I would hope your alarm bell goes off whenever you receive messages from complete strangers. If not, hopefully you've got an antivirus product installed with the most recent virus signatures and your computer has received the latest applicable hotfixes or patches to address any security vulnerabilities within your operating system/applications. Until next Thursday...
Oh, how I abhor spam. I get a ton every day thanks in part to the large number of places I leave my email address around the Web in blog comments, posts, etc. - despite my best efforts to avoid harvesters. At least Gmail sorts it out very well.
Thanks for posting on this topic, Scott!
Posted by: Easton Ellsworth | August 29, 2007 9:56 AM | Permalink to Comment