Malware Authors Exploit Actor's Tragic Death

Filed in archive Malware on January 24, 2008

In a particularly tasteless example of hackers using SEO to spread their malicious files, Trend Micro is reporting that within hours of the news that popular actor heath ledger had been found dead in his apartment, several malware sites popped up using his name and appeared at the top of search listings for the words "heath" and "ledger". Users clicking on the malicious links are redirect to another site, which prompts them to download an ActiveX update. Of course the update is fake and instead begins a series of malware downloads including TROJ_RENOS.LZ, and WORM_NUCRP.GEN. Researchers believe this latest malware attack is related to the suspected hacking of a Czech ISP's servers. Hacked sites on the servers follow the same redirect chain as the fake Heath Ledger sites. Check out Trend Micro for some interesting screenshots!