Virus writers target Aussie PM

Security experts have warned of a virus being distributed via email claiming that the Australian prime minister has had a serious heart attack.

The malware may have come from home-grown Australian virus writers, since the initial distribution is largely confined to email addresses in that continent.

The email reads: 'SYDNEY, February 18, 2007 08:56pm (AEDT) - The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard have [sic] survived a heart attack.

'Mr Howard, 67 years old, was at Kirribilli House in Sydney, his prime residence, when he was suddenly stricken. Mr Howard was taken to the Royal North Shore Hospital where the best surgeons of Australia are struggling for his life.'

The email contains a link to a website containing malicious code, and forwards recipients to an error page for The Australian newspaper to persuade users that they have found a dead link.

The virus writers may also have hoped to tap into hostility to Howard. A popular Australian joke asks: If you had John Howard, the Queen and Saddam Hussein in a room and had a gun with just two bullets who would you shoot? The answer is: John Howard, twice.

"It seems that the hackers are back to their old tricks of spamming out sensational headlines in the hope that computer users will forget to think before they click, and visit the website hosting the malicious code," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"The scammers have registered several domain names that appear to be associated with The Australian newspaper, and have gone to great effort to make people think that they really are visiting the genuine site by pointing to the real error page.

"Everyone should be on their guard against this kind of email con-trick, or risk having their PC infected."

Virus writers use a variety of social engineering techniques to get users to open attachments or visit specific web pages, and current events are very much in fashion.

Recent examples have included Valentine's Day, the European storms and Christmas.