A nasty side-effect for machines infected by the recent computer worm Sober-P has been revealed. The worm has opened up a backdoor for a spam engine which has been downloading hate messages to all infected machines. The inboxes of affected PCs have been filling with messages linked to right-wing German websites.
Sober-P grabbed attention at the beginning of the month, in Germany and around the world. The German version offered tickets to the 2006 World Cup. Now it has revealed a darker side and since Saturday has been downloading a spam engine - dubbed Sober-Q - which has bulk e-mailed links to right-wing German websites to all the PCs originally infected by Sober-P.
Politically motivated spam is a relatively recent development with the majority of junk e-mail aimed at emptying wallets with offers of porn, health cures and financial assistance. The fact that the spam engine was kicked into effect by an earlier worm shows a "long-term desire" on the part of the author, and one that has been successful.
Security firm Clearswift said it was seeing as many as ten right-wing spam messages every minute. "The original worm was obviously very successful and the volume of spam is huge," added Clearswift's threat lab manager, Pete Simpson.
The darker side of Sober_P
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Seen in a BBC news feed:
Both the next crazy dictator as well as our new messiah will come to us through our computers...
Believe whatever I spam you with!!!
Believe whatever I spam you with!!!
/|\
/|\ has a strict policy concerning disclosure of identity, showing of
light sabers, affiliationado's, multiple account users, drinking buddies who
join the same community they see me visit for years, and board hoggers
(whatever that means).
The policy is: If it doesn't bother me, I don't give a flying f4ck.
/|\ has a strict policy concerning disclosure of identity, showing of
light sabers, affiliationado's, multiple account users, drinking buddies who
join the same community they see me visit for years, and board hoggers
(whatever that means).
The policy is: If it doesn't bother me, I don't give a flying f4ck.