We have been seeing a slew of spam bearing mismatched or unrelated subjects and message bodies similar to these:
Other subjects seen so far:
- Hiliary admits past failures
- Star Trek star dies at age 79
- Find out about Harry Potter’s last novel
- Turner Empire poised for bankruptcy file
- Obama suffers setback in polls due to sex secrets
- Nokia unveils revolutionary new phone design
- Ford unveils latest 2 door design hatch
- Italy knocked out of Euro 2008
- Britney found hanged in locker room
Message bodies seen so far:
- Lindsay Lohan converts to Islam, causes uproar
- Heir to Prada empire found strangled
- Don’t belittle the effects of power enlargement
- Fantastic upgrade to your manhood available now
- Try out the latest herbal solution that will make you a new superhero
- Lindsay Lohan converts to Islam
- Italy showed France the difference in length
The body text is followed by clickable URLs, similarly made up of irrelevant sounding domain names, all ending in R.HTML. All R.HTML files lead to the download of the same malware, VIDEO.EXE (detected as TROJ_AGENT.ISU, similar file name last seen in this spam run), via redirect, iFrame and codec-style installation codes found in r.html. For others, however, they will be redirected first to hxxp:// 61.{BLOCKED}.{BLOCKED}.12/index.php and will see a fake 404 page:
The algorithm also ends in the download of TROJ_AGENT.ISU, though from hxxp:// 61.{BLOCKED}.{BLOCKED}.12 instead. In this case, the INDEX.PHP-generated pages have random variables used per each generated page and the resulting Trojan installed in the system will also have a random file name. TROJ_AGENT variants are small files that aid a main malware one way or another (by downloading the main malware file from the Internet, or hiding it, or helping with its autostart technique).
The spam-malware tandem is a common tactic, and most spam does lead to malware. Thus, the tried and tested method of not clicking on links sent through spam is highly effective in protecting your system, as well as keeping one’s spam filter and antivirus up-to-date. Remember: links received in spam lead to malware, and ultimately, to disaster.
Malware writers never tire of using VIDEO.EXE as a file name for malware. Here are some posts of malware hiding under the said overused disguise:
- When Spam Promises the Stars
- Info Stealer Trojan Arrives With News of Nardoni Case
- AntiSpySpider Weaves An Intricate Web Threat
- Another Nuwar Caught on Video
