And so it begins.
The tickertape from Barack Obama’s celebratory party has probably not even been swept up yet, but the hackers have wasted no time in launching a malware campaign.
Experts at Sophos have discovered a widespread spam attack, claiming to contain a link to news about the new president.
The emails, which have subject lines such as “Obama win preferred in world poll” and claim to come from [email protected], have accounted for approximately 60% of all malicious spam seen by SophosLabs in the last hour.
Clicking on the link, however, takes internet users to a webpage which insists you download Adobe Flash 9 to view a video of the first African-American president making an “amazing speech”. But it’s not Flash version 9, and this website is not just bogus – it’s downright dangerous.
If you install the fake version of Adobe Flash you will actually be infecting your computer with a malicious Trojan horse detected by Sophos as Mal/Behav-027. If infected by it, PC owners could find that their data has been compromised and potentially their identity stolen.
Sophos experts have determined that the malicious Trojan horse incorporates the following characteristics:
- The malware contains rootkit technology to conceal itself.
- It’s designed to steal information from an infected computer.
- It also has general “backdoor” functionality.
- It spies on user’s keyboard and mouse inputs and can take screenshots.
- It looks for passwords.
- It submits the information it discovers to a webserver located in Kiev, Ukraine.
Users of other anti-virus products are recommended to check whether updates are available to protect their computers.
Of course, this is far from the first example we have seen of hackers exploiting the US presidential race. In September I blogged about a hacker who broke into Sarah Palin’s personal email account. In the same month, hackers targeted Windows users with an email claiming to contain a sex video of Barack Obama.
Barack Obama’s first day as US President won’t start until January, but the malware authors are using his image and name right now to steal money from the innocent.
