New trojan tricks users with offer of explicit content

Sophos has warned of a new spam campaign that claims to offer free explicit images and videos, in an attempt to trick users into downloading a malicious Trojan horse. According to Sophos, a weblink to the Psyme-DL Trojan is being widely circulated within emails using a variety of subject lines, invariably containing the words ‘free’ and ‘porn’.

The emails each contain a single sentence and a link to the malicious file. When clicked on, users are given a list of free content to choose from, while the Trojan attempts to download itself onto their machines. Sophos experts note that Psyme-DL exploits a Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability, and when the weblink is accessed using Firefox, a message is displayed requesting the user to change browser.

“Despite the numerous warnings users have probably heard about safe computing and appropriate online behaviour, emails with racy subject lines still seem hard to resist for some users,” said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. “By infecting machines belonging to users who thought they might steal a peak at some free porn, this malware campaign leads victims down a rathole they might feel embarrassed to be found in. The author of Psyme-DL is not just looking to humiliate users but is also attempting to take control of the machines in order to spy, steal or cause havoc on PCs.”