A barrage of maliciousspam e-mailstargeting NFL football
fans has been launched against inboxes worldwide, according to
e-mail and web content security providerMarshal.
The Marshal Trace security team says the latest Storm spam
campaign has been timed to coincide with the start of the NFL
season. The message lures recipients to a fake NFL website with the
enticement of a "free NFL game tracker" - a utility that supposedly
updates fans on game results.
The so-called tracker is, however, a variant of the widely
distributed Storm
Trojan. Users are lured to download the tracker and by doing so
download the Trojan, which is used to steal data on their machines
and create other backdoors for hackers.
"This new campaign featuring the NFL tracker is not just
designed to target ardent NFL fans but also to exploit the emerging
popularity of web-based Fantasy leagues," said Bradley Anstis,
director of product management at Marshal.
"The Storm Gang are experts at manipulating the latest trends in
internet usage to lure unsuspecting web users into their traps, so
their move to target the NFL and Fantasy leagues is not
unexpected," he said.
The Storm Gang is now responsible for up to 20% of all spam
traffic worldwide. The same gang recently launched a YouTube
spamming campaign to distribute the Storm Trojan.