The deluge of fake CNN alerts continue to fill email boxes around the world. According to Security company MXLogic, spam posing as CNN alerts hit a peak of 11 million messages per hour early Thursday. It showed little sign of slowing over the weekend.
IT World reports that the messages have the subject heading "CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert," and sometimes uses legitimate news stories culled from CNN to make the messages more convincing. Users who click on the "FULL STORY" link in the message are redirect to a fake CNN site, where they are told they need to download an update to Flash Player, Adobe's popular Internet media player, to view a video clip from CNN. If users agree to download the bogus Flash update, they are trapped in an endless loop with the only option to shut down the browser or give in and install the malware.
As always, do not open email that comes from an unknown user. And Adobe recommends that you do not download Flash Player from a site other than Adobe.com. The real CNN Breaking News alerts are perfectly safe, but you must sign up for them.
Comments
I got about 50 of these such
Mon 11 Aug 2008 10:06:35 AM UTC — RobI got about 50 of these such emails over the weekend.
now MSNBC
Thu 14 Aug 2008 09:01:30 AM UTC — lordpakeAnd now they have shifted focus from the publicized CNN-them to MSNBC :)
I suppose you have got to
Fri 15 Aug 2008 04:23:45 PM UTC — RobI suppose you have got to admire their persistence even though they are failing.
ABC News
Sun 17 Aug 2008 03:41:40 PM UTC — missangieWhile I was reading news posts from ABC through my RSS feed, two popups appeared on my lower toolbar. When I clicked on them so I could delete them, I found warnings from both WOT and Mozilla.
I logged off and immediately ran my best spyware scanner, which found a keylogger program. Last time I had to access ABC owner WhiteWestinghouse's site, it would only load a blank screen but the blank screen had three--yes, 3--cookies loading, one from AOL.
Also beware of Comp&Save. I went to this site and my software alerted me to a spyware download. When I attempted to close the site, it froze and I had to yank the DSL cord to get rid of the download.
WOT sure saved my a** today. Thanks to all of you!