Ickie
June 10th, 2005, 12:09
A spam campaign claiming that Michael Jackson has attempted suicide has been spreading across the Internet, according to security firm Sophos .
E-mails with the bogus news contain a Trojan horse that infects a system if a user clicks on a link to find out more about the singer's alleged self-induced death.
Sophos has identified hundreds of the messages, which draw on the intense interest surrounding the pop star's recent trial and impending jury verdict.
Trojan Course
The spam messages arrive with the subject line, "Re: Suicidal aattempt" and follow with message text noting that Michael Jackson made a "suicidal attempt" at his Neverland Ranch the previous evening.
The rest of the grammatically mangled and often misspelled text reads: "They suggest this attempt follows the last claim was made against the king of pop. 46 years old Michael has left pre-suicid note which describes and interpretes some of his sins."
A link to "read more" takes users to a Web site with a message that it is too busy, but is covertly installing malicious code onto their PCs.
Virus Vector
E-mails with the bogus news contain a Trojan horse that infects a system if a user clicks on a link to find out more about the singer's alleged self-induced death.
Sophos has identified hundreds of the messages, which draw on the intense interest surrounding the pop star's recent trial and impending jury verdict.
Trojan Course
The spam messages arrive with the subject line, "Re: Suicidal aattempt" and follow with message text noting that Michael Jackson made a "suicidal attempt" at his Neverland Ranch the previous evening.
The rest of the grammatically mangled and often misspelled text reads: "They suggest this attempt follows the last claim was made against the king of pop. 46 years old Michael has left pre-suicid note which describes and interpretes some of his sins."
A link to "read more" takes users to a Web site with a message that it is too busy, but is covertly installing malicious code onto their PCs.
Virus Vector