Want To Read That SMS In Your Husband’s Phone? Your Machine Could Get Infected With a Trojan
by
on February 16, 2009,
It looks like cybercriminals leave no week without inventing yet another way to distribute malware around the web using the weaknesses incident to human nature. Today’s news is from Russia-based provider of anti-virus software, Kaspersky Lab.
The thing is that the company has discovered a new trick that cybercriminals now use to lure people into clicking their links - this time they abuse our desire to know exactly how faithful our partners are. The new spam email people get offers to download a trial version of a software that will enable any user to get text messages from another phone secretly.
The trial version of the software is told to enable a user to download up to 40 text messages from another phone for free. Quite naturally, when the receiver of the message clicks the link to download the promised software, he will download a Trojan virus.
The first emails of this type were noticed in the Russian internet segment last week and my guess is that they will eventually move to other countries and other languages as well so beware of such messages in your inbox.
But all in all I think that common sense and good reason should be the best protection when you get an email like that. After all, do you really need to know who texts your boyfriend? And if you do, are you really certain you trust him enough to be together? But the most depressing thing to me is that cybercriminals seem to know human nature as well as the best psychoanalysts do and exploit it as if their victims are small children under the age of 5 having no knowledge of how to stay safe in the world full of gadgets and technology tools.
Last week many people clicked the links clearly stating “Don’t click” on Twitter, this time we are tempted to get to know the hidden parts of lives of our partners and every day we win millions of dollars in fraudulent lotteries. I wonder what the next creative idea will be and why people with this creative mindsets are all engaged in cybercrime when they could work in marketing or sales doing probably much less harm to the society.
Via (in Russian), image credit
