Zeus botnet pushes swine flu spam

An influx of emails referencing the H1N1 virus has been detected as being sent from the Zeus botnet.

Cloudmark said that it spotted an influx of emails on December 1 and is encouraging vigilance in all email users. Capitalising on the public concern over the flu and the recent swine flu outbreak, a spate of malicious emails have been distributed with subject lines which will actually install a keylogger.

Jamie Tomasello, Cloudmark's abuse operations manager, said: “Messages with subject lines like ‘Create your personal Vaccination Profile' and ‘Governmental registration program on the H1N1 vaccination' are enticing recipients to visit a webpage proudly displaying the Center for Disease Control logo, from which they can download their ‘H1N1 Vaccine Profile Archive.'

“The ‘archive' is, in reality, the installer program for the Zeus bot, which will place a keylogger on your machine and try to steal your personal data.

“Most anti-virus vendors have signature updates that will mark this installer as malware, so one way to protect yourself is to make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date. All of the fake CDC URLs we visited were detected as forgeries by the newest versions of Firefox, as well.”

See original article on scmagazineuk.com