Hackers Spread Malware With 'Hilary Clinton' Spam

PC World ^ | Feb. 16, 2008 | Gregg Keizer

[jdm]

** EXCERPT **

Cybercriminals may have weighed risk and reward and figured that the first isn't worth the second if they try to exploit the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, a security researcher at Symantec Corp. said Friday.

At least for now.

"We've now seen just two instances of spam using political candidates to spread malicious code," said Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec's security response team and a writer on electoral cybercrime. "I think [hackers] are still a little skittish. The high visibility of the federal elections makes them cautious about stepping into it."

Earlier this week, researchers at both Symantec and McAfee Inc. reported a spam run that tried to trick users into downloading a Trojan horse posing as a video of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) supposedly shot before Tuesday's Virginia primary. "Hilary [sic] Clinton visited her campaign headquarters in Virginia and did satellite interviews, looking beyond Tuesday's trio of contests and touting the importance of a March 4 vote in Ohio," the bogus e-mail read. "Full video. Download it now!"

Users who clicked the embedded link, however, were faced with a file pegged "mpg.exe." That file was actually a downloader, which in turn retrieved and installed the "Srizbi" Trojan horse -- malware that turns Windows-running PCs into spam-spewing bots.

[jdm]

I got the Trojan.Old.Crusty.Downloader.Agent and now my Windows start-up screen looks like this:

[meanie monster]

lol

[WildcatClan]

Reformat disk with extreme prejudice! :)

[WakeUpAndVote]

How do you do that?

Gotta know, local policy?

[HangnJudge]

Why in heavens name did you do THAT

Even Firefox, running on a Mac
Rebooted and refused to reload that image

Bad Boy, BAAAAD

[SledgeCS]

I would not trust a reformat. Safer to go buy a new drive and drill holes in the infected one.

[WildcatClan]

LOL> You may be right.

[IncPen]

Al Gore.

Al Gore is behind it.