Dirty bomb news report leads to PC infection

Dmitry from our Vancouver offices has covered this in some detail on the SophosLabs blog, but I thought it was worth sharing with a wider audience.

Hackers are spamming out emails posing as breaking news stories about a bomb blast in your city, in the hope that you will follow the link and infect yourself with malware.

The emails, which have subject lines like “Why did it happen in your city?”, “Take Care!”, “Are you and your friends in good health?”, claim that 18 people have been killed in an explosion and link to what appears to be a Reuters-related news website.

However, clicking on the link takes you to a dangerous website whose only intention is to infect your Windows PC with malicious code. Clicking on what appears to be a video about the breaking news story actually leads to a malicious download.

Part of the text of the website designed to fool the unwary into believing the story to be true, reads as…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.