Sophos: Beware of Malware-Bearing Obama E-mail

Malware campaign aims to exploit election results

By Joan Goodchild, Senior Editor

November 05, 2008 — CSO —

Security firm Sophos on Wednesday issued a warning about a major malware campaign circulating that exploits the results of Tuesday's U.S. presidential election.

According to Sophos, an e-mail touting the win of Democratic candidate Barack Obama directs users to a doctored election results page. The page prompts the user to download what appears to be Adobe flash software to view an "amazing speech."

"In reality, it infects the user's computer with a Trojan horse that can be remotely controlled by hackers, leaving it open for other malware/spyware," Sophos officials said in a statement.

Sophos has identified the piece of malware in the attack as Mal/Behav-027. That piece of malware has represented as much as 60 percent of all the malicious spam seen in Sophos labs in the last 24 hours, according to a Sophos spokesperson.

This isn't the first time cybercriminals have attempted to use Obama in a spam attack. Earlier this year, a malicious e-mail claiming to contain a sex video of Obama was circulated.

Read more about malware/cybercrime in CSOonline's Malware/Cybercrime section.

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