A new spam email campaign, which is taking advantage of the popularity of Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, has been circulating online, according to SpamFighter News.
Jolie was recently declared as the highest paid actress of the year by Forbes and two days later a fake CNN news story started spreading online. The malware claims to be a CNN article and asks victims to click on links that open a dialogue for a fake update of Adobe Flash player that the user is supposed to download. But the update is nothing more than a malicious software identified as a modification of Zbot/Zeus, a Trojan horse malware that is used to steal banking details.
The use of news and events, known as a “linkbait”, is part of a “social engineering” tactic. Social engineering is a technology term which means to emotionally manipulate a user in order to reach a goal versus technological know-how.
According to security specialists, that kind of malware attack is not new and Jolie’s malware is only the latest version of the software designed specifically to steal personal information from the user’s computer. The cybercriminals came up with the malware by using a faux CNN logo in combination with gossip columns that almost everyone would read. They rely on the user’s curiosity in order to click the links sent in their emails.
In 2008, Angelina Jolie was nicknamed “Queen of Spam” by some websites, as her name was often used for malware linkbait and just like the way that Jolie’s entry in Forbes was used by scammers, the newborn son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George, has also been used as a linkbait.