Trojan horse exploits fears of World War III
A mass mailed Trojan horse uses fear of World War III to trick people into opening the malicious attachment, security firm F-Secure warned over the weekend.
E-mail messages with dire subject lines such as "Iran Just Have Started World War III," "Israel Just Have Started World War III," "USA Just Have Started World War III" and "USA Missle Strike: Iran War just have started" (sic) carry malicious executables that can have multiple names including "video.exe," "movie.exe" or "news.exe."
After the file is opened it installs a rootkit and a peer-to-peer component, F-Secure said. The infected PC is then scanned for e-mail addresses and Storm Worm propagates by sending itself to those addresses, it said.
Most businesses tend to strip executable files out of e-mails they receive, so companies would not be overly affected by the attacks. However, consumers should beware when sifting through their e-mail and not click on suspicious attachments.
