Beware of Hokie Scams

Hackers and Phishers never pass up an opportunity to commit identity theft or bot your ‘puter.  There are reports circulating that phishers have registered fake Virginia Tech related domain names in order to falsely solicit for donations or trick visitors into downloading exploits.

From InfoWorld here:

Spammers and hackers are using the slayings at Virginia Tech as a gory lure to infect computers with malicious software, security experts noted Thursday.

Spam e-mails were intercepted Wednesday night purporting to link to the (massacre) footage on a Brazilian Web site, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, at security vendor Sophos.

If clicked, the link caused a computer to automatically download a malicious screensaver, called TERROR_EM_VIRGINIA.scr by Sophos, which installs a Trojan horse program that collects banking details, Cluley said.

After emergencies and disasters, fraudulent Web sites purporting to collect charity money also tend to emerge. So far, more than 450 domain names related to the Virginia Tech shooting have been registered that look questionable, wrote Johannes Ullrich, chief technical officer for the Internet Storm Center, part of the SANS Institute, which monitors the health of the Internet.

The registrations have occurred at a faster pace than ones after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, Ullrich wrote on Monday.

The U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team warned on Tuesday it’s likely some of those domains could turn into phishing sites.

Right now the most popular way hackers have of backdooring your PC are related to Office Document exploits and the Animated Cursor overflows.  If you havent updated your PC to a current patch level, do it.  Do it now.