Following on from an earlier post about spam and the responsibility of the user to avoid encouragement, I thought it worth highlighting a particular attack that shifts its consumer focus.

One of last year’s worst viruses is known as Storm. The virus takes many forms and disrupts in many ways, it does not fall into the category of Trojan, Bot or spam agent (which all effect computers in different ways) it is in fact all of the above.

The cyber criminals behind this project are constantly reinventing the emails that deliver it and use red letter days – or special occasions to try and trick users into opening the email and downloading the file.

A report this week from Websense informs us that Storm’s focus is now on Valentine’s Day having shifted from a New Year focus. It is always worth bearing in mind that any email you receive from an unknown user are likely to be spam and not worth opening. Following this rule and deleting on receipt – without opening – avoids encouraging the machines behind the attack to resend in different forms.

Related posts:

1. Spam and Google Blog Search
2. Spam Increases – Are we to Blame
3. Suing the Internet
4. Trojan Attackers Focus on eBay
5. We Send Less Spam But Get Just as Much