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Michael Jackson spam turns into Michael Jackson worm
2 July 09 -- It never fails to amaze me how low internet hoodlums will stoop to propagate their latest attacks. Whether taking advantage of horrible natural disasters like the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, or preying on joyous occasions such as holidays and big elections, attackers have repeatedly proven that no human tragedy or celebration is too sacred for them to exploit. So it should come as no surprise to see them leveraging Michael Jackson's recent passing to infect computers with their nefarious wares.
These Michael Jackson (MJ) related attacks started with basic spam, but quickly escalated to worms [ 1 / 2 ] that prey on folks hunger for the latest Jackson news and memorabilia. The worm arrives as an email containing some Jackson related subject, such as "Remembering Michael Jackson." It also contains a malicious attachment. If you open the attachment -- typically a Zip file, supposedly containing Jackson media -- the worm infects your computer and sends itself to all your contacts. It also leverages the latest USB autorun tricks to infect your removable drives.
While his eccentric lifestyle and checkered past may have slightly tainted his career, Michael Jackson will always be a legendary icon in the music industry. I choose to remember him as he was in the Making of Thriller documentary, which I used to love watching as a kid. If you want to continue thinking of Jackson fondly, I recommend you avoid any Jackson related emails that contain attachments, and keep your antivirus software current.
As an aside: While I'm on the subject of spam and spammers, don't forget the U.S. 4th of July holiday is only a few days off. As I mentioned earlier, spammers love to take advantage of big events like the 4th of July to send their spam. In fact, researchers have already noticed a botnet called Waledac preparing to leverage this popular holiday. This weekend, you should treat 4th of July emails with the same suspicion as Michael Jackson ones.-- Corey Nachreiner, CISSP
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