Internet security companies, Symantec and McAfee, flagged up a spam campaign last week which uses the current interest in the US leadership elections to dupe users into downloading a Trojan horse.
A spam campaign that aimed to capitalise on the popularity of tracking the US leadership elections was reported by researchers at Symantec and McAfee last week.
It involved tricking users into downloading a file claiming to be a video of Senator Hillary Clinton, with the message: "Hilary [sic] Clinton visited her campaign headquarters in Virginia and did satellite interviews, looking beyond Tuesday’s trio of contests and touting the importance of a March 4th vote in Ohio – Full video. Download it now!"
However, when users clicked on the link, the file mpg.exe acted as a downloader and installed the Srizbi Trojan horse.
IT security firm Symantec wrote on its blog: "It’s election year in the United States, everyone must be aware of that by now. We’ve just observed a Trojan being spammed out utilising a candidate’s name, Hillary Clinton, as bait."
Those hit with the spam risk their PCs being turned into spam-spewing bots.
Other political news stories which have been used to lure users into clicking a link they shouldn’t include the assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto.
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