"Sick" hackers claim to have kidnapped babies

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 26 Aug 2008 at 16:59

A despicable new spam attack is fooling people into installing a Trojan Horse by claiming to have "hijacked" their baby.

The email arrives with the subject line "We have hijacked your baby" and demands a $50,000 ransom for the return of the child.

It then claims to have a photo of the baby attached to the email. The file, entitled photo.zip, is in fact the Troj/Resex-Fam Trojan, which drops malware on to the affected PC.

Aside from the odd terminology of "hijacking" a baby, the email provides other telltale signs that it might not be genuine, with the message reading: "We have attached photo of your fume".

Security firm Sophos, which discovered the attack, has condemned the perpetrators. "There's no other way of putting it - this attack is sick," says senior technology consultant, Graham Cluely.

"Hackers have no qualms about exploiting a family's natural instinct to defend its most vulnerable members. Hopefully people will pause before opening the attachment, but the reflex action of some may be to click first and think later."

The attack is the latest in a long line of attempts to exploit tragedies to spread malware. The September 11 attacks, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina have all been used to try and fool people into handing over credit card details.