Large Hadron Collider spam carries virus

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Security experts are warning of a malware attack disguised as a video of the Large Hadron Collider in action.

The bogus video link arrives in an email, which security firm Sophos said is "dodgy from the start".

Large Hadron Collider spam carries virus

The message reads: 'Wow, don't ask me how I get this video, but it's realy [sic] cool,' followed by a mytinyurl.net web link.

The scammers claim in the email that thousands of people have already enjoyed and bookmarked the video, but that it requires a special Flash plug-in to work. The plug-in contains the malware infection.

"Of course, since this video is so 'cool' and 'new' we don't seem to have the correct Flash plug-in for the movie, so we are asked to update it," said Sophos Labs researcher Prashant Kumar in a blog post.

"Far from watching the world's largest particle accelerator in action, we get another boring old malware. This so-called Flash update is malicious. We detect this malware as Troj/TDSS-BP."

The malware writers have timed the spam campaign to coincide with last week's successful test of the Large Hadron Collider after the project was suspended 14 months ago.

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