Zeus botnet performs MySpace spam campaign to spread itself further
Friday, November 20, 2009
A sophisticated Trojan dubbed "Zeus" has sent a flood of email messages to MySpace users in an attempt to propagate itself onto more computers, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The malicious spam messages are designed to look like they emanate from the MySpace support team, asking users to "update their profiles" in order to ensure continuing access to the popular social media website. The phishing messages even feature a bogus privacy protection warning similar to many automated messages from large websites.
The redirect links are meant to simulate a real MySpace login page, and, after users have input their login information to be recorded by the scammers, they are asked to download a "MySpace Update Tool," which is actually Zeus in disguise, according to a post on the blog of one of the UAB researchers, Gary Warner.
British police recently arrested two 20-year-olds as part of an investigation into the Zeus Trojan, but the pair are hardly the only alleged cyber criminals to utilize this powerful tool.
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