Geopolitics of spam
A new computer virus is making the rounds. Actually, it's not particularly new, but it's packaged to exploit Americans' interest and fear at the prospect of a US/Iran war. In my various accounts I received several hundred copies of it over the weekend.
As usual, the attack vector is human nature. Some people, on receiving a message with one of the following subject lines, will miraculously assume that the broadcast media were scooped on an outbreak of war by some guy you've never heard of with a Yahoo.com e-mail address. Their (we hope) natural skepticism thus overridden, then open the attachment containing the malicious software.
Based on the quantity of each subject line in my mailbox, the virus writers think the US will shoot first. The second most likely prospect is Israel, then Iran. Also, a lot of you want an immediate death count. (They're like baseball statistics, right? If you don't know the body count you can't set up your fantasy leagues.)
- USA Missle Strike: Iran War just have started
- USA Just Have Started World War III
- Israel Just Have Started World War III
- Iran Just Have Started World War III
- Missle Strike: The USA kills more then [1000][10000][20000] Iranian citizens
Of course, Hidden City readers are too smart to have fallen for this. Right?
8 Comments:
Thanks for blogging this. I got that same confusing spam in my inbox and googled around til I found your blog. I knew the war couldn't have started without at least some media coverage (one would hope, anyway)... And I get a lot of spam that regurgitates the day's headlines, so I did a bit of a double take upon seeing that. Phew, although I'm sure those headlines are forthcoming soon.
The heinous grammar, it makes my eyes hurt.
I haven't gotten any spam of that nature. My filters must be working.
Didn't get one. But like Claire, since I do get a lot of spam with legit news headlines in the subject line, I would probably have started checking Google News and Technorati to see wtf was going on.
None for me ... and I guess they don't care if you're on a Mac, right?
I wonder if they will do one like this when Castro kicks the bucket.
It skipped me at home and at work, which is just fine. Of course, I don't open anything with a header that badly presented. Suspect grammer. Feh.
Thanks for the warning, though. I know -- I KNOW -- certain someones at work will open that piece of mail and release a virus upon the network, just like they've done the last 7 times we've had a virus hit...
Mine said "USA just have started World War III. Is your missile big enough? c1al1s! v1agra! lev1tra!" I call that piece "When spam collides"
I didn't get one, either. But then, all the news about Castro finally dying might have crowded them out.
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