14 DAY TRIAL // Security company Marshal today reported that a group of spammers codenamed "Celebrity Spam Gang" is responsible for about 20 percent of the unsolicited email traffic affecting the consumers from all over the world. It appears that the group started its activity in August 2006 and managed to become almost as dangerous as the Storm botnet which affected an impressive number of computers. In case you're wondering where the name comes from, you should know the "Celebrity Spam Gang" usually includes the name of famous persons such as Angelina Jolie or Britney Spears in the dangerous emails sent to the users. Moreover, the spammers sustain the email attachments contain nude scenes with the celebrities, in a move meant to infect users' computers with some sort of Trojan.
"The Celebrity Spam Gang is using a common but proven means of social engineering to fool email recipients into infecting themselves with the botware. They are emulating the Storm Gang but using arguably less sophisticated methods," said VP of Products for Marshal, Bradley Anstis.
"It is a concern to us that so many computer users are still being taken in by what we would consider to be an obvious subterfuge as 'check out this nude Britney Spears game'. The Storm Gang has been more inventive with their campaigns and exploited everything from news headlines to greeting cards. There is clearly a need for renewed awareness and education."
A few days ago, security experts at Sophos discovered a new spam campaign that claims it offers nude scenes with Britney Spears but in fact, it contained a dangerous Trojan horse to infect the users' computers. Just like usual, you're advised to keep your antivirus up-to-date with the latest definitions and avoid opening untrust emails sent by unknown contacts.
"We predicted several months ago that other spammers would attempt to copy the lead of the Storm Gang and try to establish their own botnets capable of sending similar volumes of spam," the Marshal official added.