"The silence of the people is a warning for the king"

French proverb
(May 10, 1774, Luis XVI became King of France)

The evolution of spam

In the last few weeks, PandaLabs, the malware detection and analysis laboratory at Panda Security, has detected a new surge in cyber-crooks distributing malware by claiming to offer erotic photos of famous women. Traditionally, these types of emails simply included a text referring to the photos and a link (which when clicked downloaded malware onto the computer). The current spate of emails, however, includes a photo to further tempt users.

"Cyber-crooks want to increase the chances of recipients taking the bait by including one of the images in the message," explains Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs.

Once the link is clicked, the process is similar to that used in the past: users are redirected to a website with a video or images to be downloaded; if they download them, a copy of the Trojan is installed (in this case the Spammer.AHL downloader Trojan) with names like "video.exe", which when run, starts taking malicious actions on the computer. These actions include downloading other malware onto the infected computer.

To avoid falling victim to these malicious codes, PandaLabs advises you not to open emails from unknown or suspicious recipients, and not to click on any links they include.

You can see an example of this mails here

For further information about spam, go to Panda web