Sophos warns of Michael Jackson suicide spam that leads to Trojan horse

Internet Business News, June 10, 2005

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Anti-virus company Sophos has said that experts at SophosLabs, its network of virus and spam analysis centres, are warning of a spam campaign that claims Michael Jackson has attempted suicide in a bid to lure computer users into being infected by a Trojan horse.

Researchers have identified hundreds of the spam messages being sent, which arrive with the subject 'Re: Suicidal attempt' and when users click on the link contained in the message they are taken to a website which secretly installs malicious code onto their PCs.

Experts at Sophos have analysed the code downloaded by clicking on the link and determined that it attempts to download another Trojan horse which the company detects as Troj/Borobt-Gen.

This is not the first time that the star has been exploited by virus writers and hackers. In October 2004 messages were posted on the Internet claiming that incriminating home videos belonging to Jackson had been discovered, and clicking on the link infected web users with the Hackarmy Trojan horse.

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