Independence Day malware emails circulating

[Kay]

Take special care today of links to fireworks videos, my friends!

Researchers at ESET have reliable intelligence that the Waledac botnet is currently being prepared for a spam campaign around the Independence Day theme. They have registered at least 18 domain names all related to the theme of video, fireworks, and Independence Day.

The criminals behind Waledac are preparing to start sending spam with links to supposed videos of Independence Day fireworks which are, in reality, fresh copies of the Waledac malware family. We estimate the size of Waledac’s botnet as tens of thousands of infected computers. We believe that more than 20,000 compromised computers will be used to send the malicious emails, in an effort to increase the size of the botnet. This effort will allow the criminals to send out even more spam. Currently, detection of the new variants of Waledac is quite low, with only a handful of antivirus products detecting the newest threat.

Read more here : ThreatBlog Blog Archive Beware of Independence Day Scams

[Siegfred]

They should list the domains at places where internet vigilantes will find them so that they can hack the sites and wipe everything. People start fighting back against spammers, they're backed into a corner and have nowhere to run (not to mention their money gets stolen as well.)

I'd be rather suspicious if I got one, most of the people I know don't care about the fourth of July, and I don't open e-mails from people I don't know.