Bin Laden Used As Trojan Horse Lure

[Zachariah]

FYI:

Anti-virus firm Sophos reports that hackers have posted messages on some 30,000 Internet message boards and usenet newsgroups declaring that photographs of the hanging suicide of Osama bin Laden could be found on certain Web sites. The links lead users to a Trojan horse.

Virus writers have come up with another social-engineering tactic to dupe computer users into clicking onto an infected Web site.
According to the anti-virus firm Sophos, hackers have posted messages on some 30,000 Internet message boards and usenet newsgroups declaring that photographs of the hanging suicide of Osama bin Laden could be found on certain Web sites.

"This is a Trojan horse, so it will not replicate as quickly as a virus does," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, tells NewsFactor. Nor is it a new Trojan horse, he continues. "It has been around for months. What is new is the posting of messages and use of bin Laden as a ploy to get people to click on the Web site."

Gruesome Images

It certainly was a clever trick, he says. As the violence in Iraq shows no signs of abating, people have become used to seeing horrible images on the Web, ranging from dead bodies in the street to the prison-abuse scandal to videos of hostage beheadings. To some people it would be logical, then, that a photo of the dead body of bin Laden would also be on the Web.

"Increasingly, more people get their news from the Web, so it makes sense that such photos would first be available on the Internet," Cluley said. "It seems this time that the hacker has focused on the public's morbid curiosity and appetite for news on the war against terror."

Usual Reasons

The hackers' postings claim that journalists from CNN found the terrorist leader's hanged body earlier this week, but that the photographs have not been officially made public because the United States wants to verify that it is bin Laden. The messages point people to a Web site where the file containing the photographs can be downloaded. In reality, the file contains a Trojan horse that can allow hackers to gain remote control of the user's computer.

Beyond that, though, Cluley said there is no code specifying what the hackers would do with the zombie computer. "Although we can assume they would use them for their usual, favorite activities, such as denial-of-service attacks or to steal financial data."