FBI warns before Valentine “Storm” virus
The Valentine’s Day campaign that the bot-building Storm Trojan horse has been running for weeks is running at such volume that even the FBI issued a warning yesterday. “With the holiday approaching, be on the lookout for spam e-mails spreading the Storm Worm malicious software,” the FBI said in an alert posted to the home page of its Web site yesterday. The Storm Worm virus has capitalized on various holidays in the last year by sending millions of e-mails advertising an e-card link within the text of the spam e-mail. Valentine’s Day has been identified as the next target.
“This year’s version looks like a stripped-down version of last year’s,” Jamz Yaneza, research project manager at Trend Micro said in an interview last month about Storm’s one-year anniversary. “They’ve optimized the way [the bot is delivered] over the past months,” he said, citing an example of how this year’s Valentine’s Day campaign would differ from 2007’s. “They’ve learned that there’s no need to add an attachment.” Trend Micro senior antivirus researcher David Sancho spelled it out in a post to the company’s blog on Monday. “The spammed e-mail messages are just plain text, but contain links that lead to malicious Web sites displaying one of eight cute Valentine images,” he said. Sancho’s post cycled through the images that Trend Micro captured from the malware-serving sites. “If you run the executable named ‘valentine.exe,’ your system will join the Storm botnet to start spamming other Internet users,” Sancho concluded.
Source: ComputerWeek
Comments(14)
that is just wrong! for the FBI to respond to this must mean it’s really a serious virus
yep if i forget Valentines Day again, there will be storm alright
OT but guess this will be wanted & editors too lazy to post new tv releases
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These ppl that let these trojans out are the criminals.
Maybe they should start worring about the spy-bot ppl instead of targeting piracy…
You mean that “I love you” email from someone I’ve never heard of is a trick? NO WAI!
fbi is sooooo smart
Jeez, that ol’ storm worm again eh? So, is it being spread through email or is it one of the viruses in the pop up ads on this site?
One of those pictures is one of several that show up when you click the google banner for today. It tried to change something on me, so I’m not sure it can be trusted…
If Google has linked to the storm worm then we can expect it to spread much more…
Cool
Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!! Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!Bling Bling!!<br
I know this is pedantic, but is St. Valentine’s Day a “holiday” like the FBI claims, even in the US? Here in the UK, it’s a normal work day…
St. Valentines Day is not a holiday for everyone. Like with me, I am Jewish, and I do not believe in saints. So this day means nothing to me, I am happy to go to work and make a few bucks today.
Anyone seen the KY Jelly ads on TV for Valentines day?
KY Jelly,.. because Valentines day is that special time of the year for anal.
Just wondering what the point of this trojan is? whats the point of all trojans?