MSNBC.com and CNN.com Targeted by Spam Campaigns

Spammers are using different methods to spam computers users by switching their emails to impersonate online news services.

It was reported that emails with the titles “CNN.com Daily Top 10″, “CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert” and “MSNBC.com Breaking News” were all a form of malspam messages that redirected users to a web page for the viewing of a flash video. The flash video then supposedly needs a new version of the flash player in order to play and that is where a fake flash player file is offered as a download. Once this fake flash player file “adobe_flash.exe” or “get_flash_update.exe” is downloaded and opened it starts to infect your system with a Trojan which may install other rogue software onto your computer.

Basically, the spammers that are sending out these new wave of malspam messages are copycats using the old tactic of utilizing effective measures in hopes that they might see great success. It is safe to say that the newer variation using the “msnbc.com – BREAKING NEWS” message is part of the same distributers of the “CNN.com Daily Top 10″ and “CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert” malspam messages.

Spammers have used several different variations of subjects in recent malspam messages to entice computer users around the world to open their malicious spam messages.

Below are a few examples of the subject lines to look out for.

• CNN.com Daily Top 10
• CNN.com Daily Top 10 – Boy Loses Arm in Gator Attack
• CNN.com Daily Top 10 – Cheesus! Jesus Spotted in a Cheeto
• CNN.com Daily Top 10 – 6 Police Die in Pre-Olympic Attack
• CNN Alerts: My Custom Alert
• msnbc.com – BREAKING NEWS: I will be suing you
• msnbc.com – BREAKING NEWS: Mary-Kate Olsen implicated in Heath Ledger’s death
• msnbc.com – BREAKING NEWS: Bomb scare grounds thousands of flights at UK Heathrow airport
• msnbc.com – BREAKING NEWS: How to save money on gas

It is advisable to always be cautions of opening emails from senders that do not look familiar. If you know for certain that you did not register with a news network such as msnbc.com or cnn.com and you receive email messages with similar subjects as above, then you should not open them. Have you made the mistake of opening the email, clicking on the link and downloading the fake flash player? If so, you can still remove the Trojan infection. We posted an excellent CNN.com Daily Top 10 Spam Message Infection Removal Guide for the removal of the fake flash player Trojan that may be installed from the malspam messages discussed in this article.

Remember, CNN and MSNBC are not associated or affiliated with any of the malspam messages mentioned above.