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By Mary Landesman, About.com Guide to Antivirus Software since 2000

We have hijacked your baby

Tuesday August 26, 2008

Malware spam has taken yet another new twist. The latest is an email with a subject line of "We have hijacked your baby" and a message body that reads:

Hey We have hijacked your baby but you must pay once to us $50 000. The details we will send later...

We has attached photo of your fume

The email carries an attached file named photo.zip which contains a file named photo.exe. If unzipped and run, photo.exe attempts to download malware from reddii.org. Typically, the malware consists of password stealing trojans.

The odd choice of the word "fume" in the email indicates the attacker is likely a non-English speaking Mercury Rev fan who misunderstood their use of the word in the Downs Are Feminine Balloons lyrics: "your fume, baby; soon baby; kaboom, kaboom, kaboom." Odder still that there was any misinterpretation, given that fume pretty much universally means smoke. But then, given the abysmal grammar used throughout the email, it's really not that surprising.

Comments

August 26, 2008 at 12:05 pm
(1) J.Janson says:

yes, i have received this email at least once a day over the past 2 days. Thankfully my Avast scanner is able to detect and delete it before downloading the email. I just wonder what is the rate of success for such spam malware emails.

August 27, 2008 at 10:13 am
(2) cybersleuth58 says:

My internet provider provides virus protection - their’s did not catch it. Neither did my antivirus software. Luckily the subject line was so ridiculous that I suspected something. But it also made me very curious, too. Glad that this posting was available bc I looked up the subject line before doing anything. Why do people do this? It certainly doesn’t benefit them in any way! It just creates misery for the unsuspecting. Why not do something to benefit everyone???

August 27, 2008 at 12:22 pm
(3) Dog Trainer says:

What antivirus software are you using cybersleuth? You might want to update it to the latest version or virus definition

September 3, 2008 at 8:00 am
(4) Nuv says:

I wonder to which country they will divert my highjacked baby?

September 8, 2008 at 10:07 pm
(5) Bottled Water says:

I just got a similar email today and didn’t know if its a virus but had a little suspicious. Now i won’t open any attachment from unknown people.

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