Malware authors eager to capitalize on the Michael Jackson child molestation trial have been sending booby-trapped spam messages claiming the pop-singer has attempted suicide. The spammed email contains a number of grammatical and spelling errors. The message subject reads "Re: Suicidal aattempt" and the message body reads as follows:
- Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt.
They suggest this attempt follows the last claim was made against the king of pop. 46 years old Michael has left pre-suicid note which describes and interpretes some of his sins.
The email message ends with a link that, when clicked, displays a message that the website is busy. Behind the scenes, hostile code on that website is busy downloading malicious code to the recipient's computer, infecting them with a variant of the Borobt Trojan. The Borobt Trojan allows attackers remote access to the compromised system and may lead to further infection.
Michael Jackson was also the topic of another miscreant email which circulated in October 2004. That email claimed to carry still pictures from alleged Michael Jackson home movies showing the singer in compromising situations. Those who opened the fictitious images were greeted instead with the Hackarmy Trojan. Other Hackarmy-laced email messages have exploited the celebrity of soccer star David Beckham, Osama bin Laden, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
