Forget Angelina, forget CNN headlines, we want Internet Explorer 7!

It’s a funny old business, social engineering.

In the past week or so we’ve seen Britney and Paris having fun together, CNN headlines of Michael Jackson being sued by his pet dog, and not to mention the numerous XXX-rated pictures of Angelina Jolie.

So, what do the bad guys do now?

Well, they’re not offering pictures of the hottest new starlet, or even breaking news from the Olympic Games (although that surely isn’t too far away..). No, they’re urging us to download a program that has been free to download from Microsoft’s website since October 2006.

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As with earlier attacks, the actual link points to an executable file (detected by Sophos as Troj/FakeAle-EF), and the email was most certainly not sent by Microsoft. You would be very unwise to download and install it. If you want IE7, go to Microsoft’s website instead.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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