| Spam has now become a tool for propagandists as well as scam
artists as this weekend brought a new computer worm which has
sent right-wing German messages to millions of computers.
The Troj/Sober-Q Trojan horse is being used to send out German
nationalistic spam from PCs previously infected by the Sober-N
worm.
This variant turns computers into "zombies" that
can be used as a base for attacks. The amount of spam being
generated has been described by experts as "staggering".
Bearing German-language subject lines that translate to phrases
like 'Ich bin immer noch kein Spammer! Aber sollte vielleicht
einer werden :)', which translates to 'I'm not a spammer,
but perhaps I should become one :)", where the messages
point to racist German websites and news articles that could
be used to support anti-immigrant views.
Among the many messages was one with the German subject line
"60 Years of Freedom: Who's Celebrating?" referencing
the end of World War II. Another read: "Honorable Action"
and contained a link to the Web site of the NPD, Germany's
right-wing nationalist political party. One in English carried
the subject: "Dresden Bombing Is To Be Regretted Enormously,"
referring to the Allied attack on the German city during World
War II.
Why Now?
The timing of the attack coincided with two events that might
arouse right-wing feelings in Germany: an election in the
state of Northrhine-Westfalia and the 60th anniversary of
the end of World War II in Europe.
It came shortly after a similar spam plague that promised
tickets to the Football World Cup in 2006. It is now thought
that the W32/Sober-N
attack probably served as a blueprint for the current campaign.
The worm's author is likely to be a neo-Nazi sympathiser
motivated by ideology, rather than a mercenary who would send
out messages for any paying customer, experts say. They also
suggest that the worm's author could tap the network of infected
computers in the future to send more spam or knock targeted
Web sites offline.
This problem can be combated using ArmourPlate. The ArmourPlate
Anti
Spam service works by scanning your company's email to
stop spam before it reaches your computer network. Your company's
email is filtered by our proprietary, highly sophisticated
spam recognition engine, 'Robot 5', which will detect almost
all spam and places it in an individual user's Spam Box, housed
on the ArmourPlate system. Each email user can view their
own Spam Box via a Web browser.
By not having ArmourPlate Your company is at very real risk.
Using the ArmourPlate service will safeguard your company
and save you money.
ArmourPlate is considerably more cost effective than tackling
the spam and virus problem internally at your company.
Having spam and viruses stopped at source by us saves you
from investing in hardware, software and IT time, freeing
up resources to focus on other issues.
No more spam. No more viruses. Simple!
Source: www.abc.net.au
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Bombing being used to Bombard Spam - 18/05/2005
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