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Milosevic Trojan Horse
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-03-15
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Recently deceased Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic became the focus of a Trojan loaded email. The message claims evidence Milosevic was killed and instead a Trojan horse leaves some horse apples in the form of Dropper-FB.
The Dropper is a nasty one too because it drops the security on infected computers and can cause no end of problems. Messages containing the Dropper-FB were spammed, claiming photographic evidence about how the dead leader was killed.
Slobodan Milosevic died on Saturday in the Netherlands while on trial for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The subsequent autopsy claimed he died of a heart attack although family members are challenging that finding.
A typical message reads as follows:
Subject line: Slobodan Milosevic was killed
Attached file: picture.scr
Message body:
The real evidence in attached photo.
"Newspapers and Internet message boards are full of conspiracy theories as to how Slobodan Milosevic may have met his end, and this Trojan horse exploits interest in the breaking news story in an attempt to fool people into infection," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"Hackers are taking advantage of the public's morbid curiosity and appetite for breaking news in their desire to infect and compromise computers."
Slobodan Milosevic is the latest in a long line of public figures to be used as bait by malware authors and hackers. Politicians such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and PW Botha have been have been used in the past. Furthermore, the promise of glimpses of glamorous pin-ups like Halle Berry, Anna Kournikova, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears or the stars of 'Sex and the City' have previously been used to help viruses spread.
Make sure to keep your security software updated and occasionally check out some of the security services that offer free scans of one's computer online. Sometimes those are good just for a more objective search.
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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