Recent news of a swimsuit mishap involving a popular Philippine TV personality, Anne Curtis, spread like wildfire when members of the press captured the said incident and circulated supposed videos over the Web. The incident happened last Sunday while the Australian-born TV host and movie actress was performing a dance number while shooting live for a local noontime TV show.
Fans and detractors of the actress alike had a field day with the occurrence. Apparently, cybercriminals caught on as they are now taking advantage of Curtis’ wardrobe malfunction incident to spread new FAKEAV variants.
Using the usual blackhat search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, cybercriminals were able to make their malicious links the top-ranking results when users search for videos of the nip-slip incident.
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These links lead to the download of TROJ_FAKEAV.ENZ, which when executed, displays the following fake warning boxes and application windows, tricking users into thinking their systems are infected by several malware and thus buying the fake antivirus.
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For cybercriminals, a celebrity’s demise is always an opportunity to make money. Other celebrities that were taken advantage of and used for social-engineering tactics include Brittany Murphy, Farrah Fawcett, and, of course, the ever-controversial Paris Hilton.
As always, users should be careful about clicking links, especially if these have to do with news on celebrity tragedies. Trend Micro product users are protected from this threat by the Smart Protection Network™, which blocks user access to related malicious sites and prevents them from being downloaded onto systems.
Non-Trend Micro product users can likewise stay protected by using free tools like Web Protection Add-On, a lightweight add-on solution designed to proactively protect computers against Web threats and works alongside existing desktop protection.
