Obama inaugurated as top malware lure

Scammers are using Barack Obama as a lure

Barack Obama's historic election victory has inspired a flood of new malware as attackers disguise Trojan installers as audio and video clips of Tuesday evening's victory speech in Chicago.

Many of the attacks involve attachments to spam messages or fake codec downloads. Attackers are using subject lines such as 'Obama's Win Reshapes the Race' and 'Obama Wouldn't Be First Black President'.

Users are then asked to download either an attached executable file or visit a fake video site which attempts to trick them into installing a malicious executable disguised as an Adobe Flash plug-in.

The majority of the attacks use the familiar attachment or fake codec methods, but another scam is using less conventional means.

Researchers at Symantec uncovered a scam in which a spam message purports to offer an Obama DVD. In order to purchase the disc, users are asked to provide bank account details which are then collected and harvested for fraudulent use.

"It does not matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, the American election remains a nonpartisan opportunity for malware writers to get into your computer using Barack Obama, John McCain or even Ralph Nader," said McAfee researcher Pedro Bueno in a blog posting.

Users are advised to follow best practice for email security, such as avoiding suspicious or unsolicited messages and not opening attachments from unknown sources.

Fake codec attacks can be avoided by downloading plug-ins only from trusted sites or the vendor itself. Adobe, for example, offers the latest version of Flash on its own site.