Want to see naked pictures of your favorite Hollywood actresses? It could cost you an expensive trip to your local computer repair shop if you do.
Fake email claiming to offer nude photographs of Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Milla Jovovich and pixilated videogame babe Lara Croft are behind 80 per cent of computer viruses last month, according to experts. For, though claiming to contain shocking pictures of female celebrities, the emails, once opened, install a malicious root kit.”These emails are masked as pornographic content, tempting the unwary into opening a file on their Windows computer which will install a root kit 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 – in fact it has been used so often by cybercriminals that it from time to time 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. IT security and control firm Sophos is influence computer users to think before opening unsolicited email attachments following the widespread spam campaign.
The emails, which typically have an attached, file called amazing.zip or shocking.zip.
Mr. Cluley said: “The best way to defend you is to practice 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.”You should always think twice before opening a file that unexpectedly arrives in your email inbox.”
“Root kits are software frequently used by third parties – usually a hacker – to hide other software and processes using advanced stealth techniques.”Malicious code, such as spyware and key loggers, can be invisibly cloaked from detection by conventional security products or the operating system making them hard to detect.”Hackers use root kit technology to maintain access to a compromised computer without the user’s knowledge, so it’s important to be properly defended from these sort of threats.”
If you receive an e-mail (even from a friend) with an attachment promising video of starlets like Angelina Jolie or Natalie Portman wearing nothing but their pride, do yourself a favor and don’t open it: It’s a virus. Amazingly, 80 percent of reported computer infections last month came from this single source. The e-mails contain a message along the lines of, “Shocking video of nude Angelina Jolie,” and carry a single attachment named either amazing.zip or shocking.zip. The attachment purports to contain the titillating peep show, but what it actually includes is a piece of malicious software called a rootkit.
A root kit is basically computer code that installs itself in a protected area on your machine’s hard drive. Once there, it’s very difficult to detect and remove. Frighteningly, it can do just about anything it wants, including monitoring anything you type on your keyboard, rifling through your files for confidential information, participating in attacks against other computers and, of course, e-mailing itself to all of your contacts.Sending your friends a virus is no way to win their admiration, but sending them a virus that proves you’re the sort of person who would open an attachment like shocking.zip, well, that could do some serious long-term harm to your social status.
If you suspect your computer is infected with a virus, or you’d like to know how to spot the threats currently spreading themselves over the Internet, anti-virus software maker McAffe is a great resource. Granted, this a company trying to sell you a product, but its site offers free information on current viruses and free tools for removing some of the more sinister ones.