The spammers who have been sending the CNN.com daily top ten email spam seems to be sending a second wave of malware spams but this time the links really look like they lead to legit CNN links. Just today, I received this CNN alerts: My custom alert email and the supposed news the email brings is really catchy: President Bush withdraws from Iraq. The hoax news title link also looks like a real CNN site: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/07/threat.ap/index.html. Unfortunately, the sender of the email does not really look suspicious because it comes from a certain esubitam@equus-kentucky.com.
The email goes on further to deceive the recipient that they are actually receiving the email alert because of this line:
You have agreed to receive this email from CNN.com as a result of your CNN.com preference settings.
To manage your settings click here.
To alter your alert criteria or frequency or to unsubscribe from receiving custom email alerts, click here.
As always, the email has edit your subscription and unsubscribe links but this time it even provides links to 2008 Cable News Network’s supposed privacy policy and terms.
So why not click the links? According to mxlab, the links will lead you to a website where you may download a malicious file adobe_flash.exe.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
There is also the BBC News. It seems more spam messages are using news sites
August 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
another one now…
.msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft buys over AOL
Same deal , don’t open…it does the adobe_flash.exe trick
August 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
i know what you mean, i tried everything too, but here try this website and see what happens. i just emailed them and i am gonna see what happens
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form9e.html
good luck to you
August 13th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
[...] Another Trojan from CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert Email [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
m john,
how do you make a message rule to stop these alerts?
if it’s too complicated to descrtibe in detail, please could you point me in the right direction?
many thanks,
August 11th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
M John,
I guess, you better ignore these spam messages because the spammers who are sending these messages seem to be good.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I can not believe I clicked on that stupid link and infected my system; I know better but it was after mid-night…lol I am attempting the following
http://www.411-spyware.com/fake-cnn-alerts-my-custom-alert-email
August 10th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I’ve tried everything to stop the CNN Alert messages from getting into my inbox but in the end there was only one way I could stop them and believe me there were many hundreds of them. I had to create a message rule to delete any message with CNN in the subject, deleting ‘CNN Alerts’ did not for some reason work.
Surely there must be someone out there who can stop these unwanted emails that appear to be getting worse in effect and more nemerous. Maybe it should be up to the ISPs to fix this problem as they have a vested interest.
JohnC
August 9th, 2008 at 6:58 am
[...] Another Trojan from CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert Email [...]