Security researchers at BitDefender, an antivirus firm, have warned that a new malware attack is infecting email via spam that appears to relate to the latest Harry Potter movie, the Half-Blood Prince.

The malware attack is launched with the simple click of a link that is located inside the email, which promises users that they can access exclusive downloads of the film if they click on the URL.

Once the URL is accessed, recipients are sent to a website that contains scareware that leads users to think that their computers already are infected with viruses.

The scareware program then tricks users into downloading its malicious malware in order to clean up the infection, while actually initialising the infection.

The Scareware program that is found in the Harry Potter emails will open a window titled Personal Antivirus, which will tell users to purchase a fake antivirus program.

The dummy program then terminates Windows Defender and hides under the radar of the PCs current anti-virus protection suite.

Other security attacks recently include a warning from Sophos that phishing spam is being issued to those who subscribe to World of Warcraft, telling subscribers their account has been eliminated.

As always, if it sounds too good to be true, or even slightly suspicious, you may want to check the email sender’s address twice because it is likely that you may be viewing spam.

To avoid infection an email spam product is a worthwhile purchase or there are many open source protection software available online.

{SECURITYWATCH}