Hackers Luring Victims Using Japan Disaster
Security researchers say that hackers are using the unfolding disaster in Japan by appealing to people’s sense of altruism–or, in some cases, voyeurism–by sending spam email that contain links laden with malicious code. Some of the links are supposed to be of footage of the earthquake or tsunami, some purport to be from relief organizations, while others claim that recipients have inherited $12 million from victims in Japan.
But people who click on those links activate malicious code that is embedded in their personal computers. According to Satnam Narang, a threat analyst with Internet security firm M86, the code not only turns the infected computer into a drone that can be used by hackers to send more spam in the future, but also tricks people into paying $49 for fake anti-virus software.
