Monday, 16 October 2006

Spam Campaign Targets MySpace Users

Sophos's has issued a warning regarding an aggressively distributed Spam campaign that uses the name of MySpace in an attempt to phish information from music lovers. The e-mails have been spammed out to many computer users around the globe in the last week, luring them into clicking on links to a web site posing as an online music store.

The subject headings of the Spam e-mails typically read, 'New message from on MySpace sent on '. Using the guise of a MySpace contact e-mail, the Spammers heighten the chances of potential victims opening the e-mail. The message in the e-mail then informs the user, 'You've got a new song from on MySpace!' and invites them to click on a link to hear 'your MySpace music'.

However, rather than taking users to the MySpace web site, it directs them to a site claiming to sell MP3 music, and encourages them to pay to download music. The site, which only had its domain name registered on 5 October and claims to be based in Lappeenranta in Finland, has no affiliation with the social networking web site.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said, "This e-mail has been so aggressively spammed out that many of its recipients are not even MySpace users, so common sense should tell them the e-mail is unsolicited and is to be deleted. Anyone who follows the links expecting to get free music, however, is risking handing their e-mail address, credit card numbers and other private information into the hands of spammers."