Spam News

Spam 'Harry Potter' emails lead to malware

Monday, July 27, 2009

A new wave of spam related to the popular Harry Potter movie attempts to infect recipients with malware via a malicious link promising downloads of the latest film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, according to security researchers at antivirus firm BitDefender.

The spam email directs recipients to an infected website that offers up scareware, a type of malware that attempts to trick users into believing their PC has been infected with a virus. Scareware is a Trojan downloader that actually infects the PC while claiming to protect it.

In this case, a version of scareware called Personal Antivirus opens a window warning users their PC is infected and directs them to buy the phony antivirus product, which downloads additional malware and terminates the Windows Defender process to remain undetected, BitDefender said on its security blog.

Cybercriminals frequently use alluring or trending-popular subject headings in spam emails or instant messages to trick recipients into clicking on malicious links or downloading malware, security experts warn.

Recently, researchers at the UK web security firm Sophos came across phishing spam that targets gamers by saying their World of Warcraft account has been suspended for violating the terms of use.

Users can protect themselves from these attacks with web filtering and email filtering antivirus products.