Spam News

Waledac: There's a bomb in your city

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A new spam email is circulating that attempts to distribute the Waledac trojan through the use of false news concerning an exploded bomb in the user's city, according to various security firms.

This is change in strategy for the Waledac trojan, which had previously sent out spam emails close to certain holidays with malicious links in an attempt to dupe users into downloading the botnet onto their machines.

With this new cyberattack, users receive an email containing a link to a reportedly genuine-looking website with a logo from the news agency Reuters. The fake news story contains a headline that is customized to the user's city thanks to geolocation technology and a video player that allegedly contains the breaking news.

The goal of the trojan is for users to click on the video, which installs Waledac onto the system to await for further instructions from the cybercriminals involved.

Waledac, which is widely considered an evolved version of the Storm botnet, had recently sent spam emails surrounding the historic presidential inauguration. Many security officials had expected the botnet to release new spam emails centering on the St. Patrick's Day holiday.