Malicious Virus Warning
Posted by Ron Sitton on November 7th, 2008MONTICELLO, Ark. — I received the following warning from our Information Technology team at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Thought you might want to be cautious:
Original release date: November 6, 2008 at 9:26 am Last revised: November 6, 2008 at 9:26 am
US-CERT (US Computer Emergency Readiness Team) is aware of public reports of email attacks circulating that are related to the recent U.S. presidential election. The email messages appear to be coming from a seemingly legitimate source and contain a message indicating that additional news coverage of the election is available by following a link. The link (see example below) directs users to a website that appears to contain a video of the president elect. The website will instruct the user to update to a new version of Adobe Flash Player in order to view the video. This update is not a legitimate Adobe Flash Player update; it is malicious code. If the user downloads this executable file, malicious code may be installed on the system.
US-CERT encourages users to take the following preventative measures to mitigate the security risks:
* Install antivirus software, and keep the virus signatures up to date.
* Do not follow unsolicited links.
* Use caution when visiting untrusted websites.
* Use caution when downloading and installing applications.
* Obtain software applications and updates directly from the vendor’s website.
Relevant Url: