14 DAY TRIAL // Although the Olympics ended this Sunday, the malware employed by attackers, using Olympic-related headlines, is still causing damage. “News” stories about the most popular athletes still linger among other spam messages that are continuously sent to sometimes unwary recipients. Michael Phelps, the multi-Olympic champion, is among the celebrities whose names are most used in spam campaigns. Promising juicy details about one of the publicity contracts that the swimmer just recently signed, attackers trick people into downloading malware from a malicious website.
The other athlete whose image is used in spam campaigns, even now that the Olympics have ended, is the Swedish Sara Boberg, who competed for a crossbow medal. Emails allegedly including a picture of the athlete, half-clothed, to put it mildly, have been spotted by security company BitDefender.
“As a golden rule, we persistently recommend you not to click on any email related to the Olympics. These links usually trigger a series of downloads and malware installments that can seriously compromise the entire system. If you want to learn about the results of the competitions at the Olympics, the safest method is to search for these results on international news agencies websites or on portals that are especially designed to host sports news. This way, spam messages can be avoided, along with their malicious consequences.” Chief of Antispam Research Lab, BitDefender, Vlad Valceanu recommends.
The machines of those who fall for the trick of the attackers get infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.AAH, a type of malware that performs changes in the current wallpaper to make it display a fake virus alert. After the infection, users are advised to download a rogue antivirus that installs even more malware. “The rogue security tool that is promoted by these messages via various compromised websites has been already employed in other spam waves, such as those which offered so-called news about Angelina Jolie, Barack Obama's electoral campaign or the latest events in the Middle East.” Valceanu adds.