Topic: Obama site smackdown spam only offers malware (DDoS Obama, packet flinging)

[Samker]

Spam messages offering links to a tool designed to knock out the website of President Obama lead only to dodgy software.

Junk mail ostensibly punting software that allows anti-Obama-ists to become cyberactivists says: "If You don't like Obama come here, you can help to ddos his site with your installs." Disappointingly, no deeper political reason why a DDoS attack might be justified is offered.

The terse spam message links to a website where prospective marks are offered money for installing the dodgy "packet flinging" tool. The attackers missed a chance to make reference to a recent mass marketing campaign from the White House justifying recent healthcare reforms that some have described as spam as supposedly justifying an "aggressive response", for example: http://blog.proofpoint.com/2009/08/is-the-white-house-sending-spam.html

Visitors to the ropey site punted by the spam are told to come back regularly for updates and warned that security scanner software may come to identify the software on offer as malign, and consign it to quarantine.

That's certainly true, though not for the reasons suggested.

The "DDoS Obama" spam was one theme of a larger spam run, reports email security firm Proofpoint: http://blog.proofpoint.com/2009/08/and-now-hackers-are-ddosing-obama-or-are-they-just-zombifying-your-machine.html
Other spam messages in the series offered more typical lures, such as pornography, while again pointing to the same malware download.

As Proofpoint helpfully explains, users would be foolhardy to take the description offered by hackers at face value. Leaving aside ethical concerns and potential for prosecution, it's always more likely that any supposed Obama website attack tool would turn compromised machines into spam-relaying zombies than anything else.

"Regardless of your political leanings - installing such software is a really bad idea," Proofpoint concludes.

Proofpoint's point is valid, although it's worth pointing out there is a precedent for DDoS attack tools that volunteers were invited to install. Zionist cyberactivists were offered a tool that did actually throw malign packets at Hamas websites earlier this year, though the same approach might just have easily been used to distribute banking Trojans or spambots, for example.

(Register)