In case it's possible you're not sick of political news yet, here's the tidbit to set you over: Both Obama's and McCain's computer systems were hacked during the presidential campaign by foreign agents.
Campaigns Hacked, Obama Spam Commences
In a preview of Newsweek's special elections project report, the magazine teased about how the presidential candidates' systems were compromise. This summer, Obama's IT crew though they were dealing with a nasty virus, and upon the likelihood of it being a phishing attack. But it was worse than that:
. . .by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The McCain campaign confirmed they're computers had been hacked, too. No evidence was offered, but technicians suspected hackers in Russia or China. The reigning theory was that foreign government agents were looking for information they could use as leverage in future negotiations.
The worldwide attention of this particular campaign has made the US a huge target in general. The day after it's all over (phew!), attackers have gone full force, sending out malware-packing spam offering details about the President-Elect. Clicking on the link prompts a supposed download of Adobe Flash, but transfers instead a Trojan horse named Mal/Behav-027.
Crooks are getting more creative and brazen, too. They're buying AdWords now. Sophos reported a link appearing on "a search engine" (Google's interface is in the screen shot) that, when clicked, brought up a download installer screen promising the file was "100% checked by Antivirus." It carries an Acrobat Reader exploit called CVE-2007-5659.
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