14 DAY TRIAL // As a Secure Computing report shows, Angelina Jolie was "responsible" for 2.28% of the total spam that affected Americans' computers in July. Curious users were teased with the promise of pictures and videos in which the Hollywood star appeared half-clothed, to say the least. Other celebrities whose image was overly used in spam campaigns were Barack Obama, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Brad Pitt and Michael Jackson.
With all that, July also brought a rather unusual spam attack, that installed a Storm trojan on the machines whose owners were not at all cautious. Users were informed that, in order to deal with the global economic recession, the governments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico had decided to adopt the same currency, the "amero." People were encouraged to click on a small icon that showed the new currency, in order to both enlarge the image and find out what the common economic plan of the three nations was.
Fake invoices were attached to emails with bodies that sounded like this: "Unfortunately we were not able to deliver postal package you sent on July the 1st in time because the recipient's address is not correct. Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office." Many users, curious about the attached invoices, downloaded them and got their machines infected with malware.
Despite all these threats, researchers at Secure Computing said that July was the month with the lowest rate of spam in 2008. Network administrators and users are advised, though, to be aware of the dangers that are yet to come. "If the traffic volume grows at a rate comparable with previous years, then we can expect to see overall volumes rise by roughly 110 percent from their low point around the second week in July to a high point expected to crest sometime around the end of October or beginning of November, where it will remain steady for a few months." the report warned.