14 DAY TRIAL // The long-awaited Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is finally available to most of the Internet users! No, not as a movie, because most of us can enjoy some exciting? spam messages! As usual, the spam messages are accompanied by malicious files, in this case the Troj/Yar-A Trojan horse that is attached to the email. According to the security company Sophos, the unsolicited email message offers the chance to win free tickets to the movie's first night. The email is also encouraging users to download a trailer attached to the message that is actually a dangerous file meant to download other malicious malware from the Internet.
"Of course, there are no tickets," warns Paul Ducklin, Head of Technology, Asia Pacific, at Sophos according to an article published on the official page of the security company. "And there is no film trailer - just a malicious program which tries to download further malware from the internet. Remember: if an email sounds too good to be true, then you can safely assume that it isn't true."
Basically, the Troj/Yar-a Trojan tries to turn your antivirus off and then starts a download session, transferring numerous dangerous files on your computer. The infection with the Trojan file can be easily noticed because it displays an "unsupported codec" error. "The file pirate_alert.exe is then run and will display a fake error message with the title "Unsupported MPEG Codec Error: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" and the message "Unsupported MPEG Codec Error: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Go to official web site: ", Sophos mentions in the description of the Trojan file.
As usual, there's not much you can do to protect your computer, as most of the security solutions are vulnerable and can't discover 100 percent of the spam messages. However, you're advised to avoid opening untrusted emails and delete the unsolicited messages with attachments.