Industry news

Celebrity spam spreads malware

A new malware distribution scheme which uses spam to enter data networks has been identified in new research.

The technique uses headlines including the names of celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears and Barack Obama to encourage users to open the message, according to BitDefender.

When they visit the linked page, users are asked to download an alleged update for Adobe's Flash player, which then begins to automatically download the Trojan.Downloader.Tibs.GZM malware.

If not halted, the code will start to download other pieces of malware onto the system and network, including the Trojan.Peed.JPU application.

Bogdan Dumitru, BitDefender's chief technology officer, commented: "These e-mail messages are part of a larger wave that attempts to infect the user with miscellaneous Trojans."

The company also points out that the attempt is similar to another spam campaign which uses the names of Angelina Jolie and Michael Jackson's, although the malicious code and utilities involved have been changed.

Earlier this month, BitDefender warned of spam messages which used US military actions to spread malware onto data networks.

The emails claimed to contain news of an alleged attack of the US Army against Iran to facilitate the downloading of code onto a computer.