F****** Microsoft and that W***** George Bush help boost spam traffic

Davey Winder
Monday, 28 July 2008 20:15

Business IT - Security

“This newest malicious spam campaign from Rustock stands out for two reasons,” said Phil Hay, Lead Threat Analyst for Marshal’s TRACE Team. “Firstly, it is a particularly good example of an arrangement of social engineering methods designed to get you to lower your guard and infect yourself – it is easy to be taken in by it. Secondly, the scale of the campaign is significant. In terms of volume, this is one of the biggest malicious spam campaigns we have ever seen.”

My favourite of the Bush related email headlines was not rude, contained no expletives, but did suggest "Bush Down to 8 Friends on Myspace" which displays a classic phishing/scam problem: it should have read 'up to 8' surely?

The other Bush spam that stood out was the one that declared San Francisco as part of the Axis of Evil, which exposes the spammers as either being homophobic or having a risky sense of humour. More likely it exposes them as knowing which buttons to press when it comes to getting people to knee-jerk-and-click.

Which is not to say that some of the titles were not without some humour: how does "Al Qaeda Reports Declining Revenues in Fiscal 08" grab you? It made me laugh, that's for sure.  Although not as much as:

"Paris Hilton Lectures on Dickens and Dostoevsky"

George Bush and Paris Hilton were not the only famous names being maligned by the spam campaign though. I was disappointed to discover that 'Shocking Video Shows Spongebob and Gay Sex' did not name names, although I'm guessing it must be the already pink Patrick.

“Some of the headlines are hard to take seriously and some of them are believably enticing. The Rustock spammers appear to be experimenting to see which types of headlines solicit the most hits from recipients. A common theme seems to be sensationalizing recent prominent events such as Microsoft’s bid to acquire Yahoo. Celebrities like Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton also feature as subjects” explained Hay.

And the sensational text does not finish with the headline, the body content while usually unrelated to the title continues with more enticing nonsense. The ultimate aim to get you to click on the 'viewmovie' link payload. Something all too many people seem only too eager to do...