Gorinchem, 3 August, 2007 - IT security and control firm Sophos is urging computer users to think before opening unsolicited email attachments following the discovery of a widespread malicious spam campaign that claims to contain shocking indecent pictures of female celebrities Nicole Kidman, Milla Jovovich, Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman.
By exploiting the global interest in these Hollywood stars, the emails attempt to get computer users to open an attached zip file. Within this is a program that, when run, launches both the NTRootK-BY rootkit and the Agent-FVT Trojan.
According to Sophos, the emails typically arrive with an attached file called amazing.zip or shocking.zip.
"These emails are masquerading as celebrity adult content, tempting the unwary into opening a file on their Windows computer which will install a rootkit and download further malicious code from the internet," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "This kind of social engineering trick is nothing new - it's used so often by cybercriminals that it sometimes feels like it's been around since the days of the silent movies. However, that hasn't stopped it from being an effective way to fool many people into running code designed to allow hackers to break into computers."
Sophos has updated its anti-virus products to detect the malicious attachment as Troj/Dloadr-BCP.
"The best way to defend yourself is to practise safe computing. That means not only running an up-to-date anti-virus, security patches and firewall - but also exercising caution over what programs you decide to run on your computer," continued Cluley. "You should always think twice before opening a file that unexpectedly arrives in your email inbox."
Sophos experts note that this is not the first time that female celebrities have been used as bait in an attempt to trick innocent computer users into viral infection. The promise of glimpses of pin-ups like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Halle Berry, Avril Lavigne, Anna Kournikova, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, or the stars of 'Sex and the City' have previously been used to help viruses spread.
Sophos continues to recommend companies protect their desktops and servers with automatically updated protection against viruses, hackers, spyware, and spam.
Further information, the email text and an image of the email can be found
here.
About Sophos:
Sophos is a world leader in IT security and control. Sophos offers complete protection and control to business, education and government organisations - defending against known and unknown malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse and uncontrolled network access (NAC). Sophos's reliably engineered, easy-to-operate products protect more than 100 million users in more than 150 countries. Through over 20 years' experience and a global network of threat analysis centres, the company responds rapidly to emerging threats and achieves the highest levels of customer satisfaction in the industry. Sophos is a global company with headquarters in Boston, MA, and Oxford, UK. For more information on Sophos, visit
www.sophos.com For more information or for interview requests, please contact:
Sophos Benelux
Graham Cluley
Tel: +44 (0)1235 544114 or +44 (0)7990 552181
graham.cluley(at)sophos.com
Creative Strategies
Elke De Ridder
Tel: +32 2 267 41 60
ederidder(at)creative-strategies.eu.com