Spam News

Waledac worm celebrates Valentine's Day with spam

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

After littering inboxes with presidential inauguration spam emails last week, the cybercriminals behind the Waledac worm have reportedly shifted its focus from politics to the upcoming holiday Valentine's Day.

Though the holiday is a little less than three weeks away, spam emails with the subject line "love before Saint Valentine's day" have been steadily increasing.

Contained in the email is a malicious link that, if clicked on, takes users to a page with a picture of 12 different hearts. Users are told to "Guess which one is for you." If any of the pictures are clicked, a worm is downloaded onto the user's machine.

Once infected, the computer joins the ever-growing Waledac botnet, which may also be used to steal private data from users' machines. It spreads through other machines by collecting email addresses stored on the compromised machine and sending out spam emails.

The technique of using a greeting card message close to holiday is not new, though it has been effective in the past. It was reported Waledac employed a similar tactic during the weeks leading up to Christmas and Chanukah.