Major Events Will Spur an Increase in Spam

The death of Osama bin Laden is no exception. A major part of the bin Laden spam is coming from emails that look like Facebook updates from friends.

The email looks like it comes from friends and urges the user to cut and paste a string of malicious text in order to access a video of bin Laden’s killing. If a user follows the directions, they are actually granting full access of their accounts to the hackers.

The hackers then use the compromised accounts to further propagate the virus by sending it to the users’ friends.

Other hacker campaigns that exploit bin Laden’s death use emails to send fake links that cause malicious software to be downloaded on the PC.

When looking through Facebook notifications or regular email, be wary. Just because the email looks to be from a friend, does not mean that they haven’t already been hacked.