Cybercrooks Using Faux Fox News World War 3 Alert Newsletters to Spread Exploit Kit Malware

Naturally, the basic thought World War III does not sit too well with many considering how the weapons of today could utterly annihilate countries populated with millions of people. With that notion, cybercrooks have taken to the information super highway that we know as the internet spread malware disguised as Syria World War III newsletter alerts gaining mass attention.

The recent chaotic Syrian conflict has sparked an interest and concern for the rest of the world and any new news stories on the subject matter gains our undivided attention. Cybercrooks know this very thing, which is why they have cleverly orchestrated a malware campaign that promises exclusive videos and articles about the Syrian conflict so they can spread malware.

According to Bitdefender, cybercriminals have spoofed Fox News addresses to send out a newsletter creating a sense of urgency because it alleges that the Syrian conflict is going to start World War 3. In the subject lines of these malicious newsletters exploiting Fox News, it reads: "U.S. Military Action in Syria—is it WW3 start?" to "Obama Sending US Forces to Syria," and "US deploys 115,000 troops in Syria." An example of the fake newsletter message was captured by Websense shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Example of fake Fox News Newsletter 'US deploys 25,000 troops in Syria' - Source: Websense

Within the body of these faux newsletters, it goes on to explain how the 3,000 US Marines have been deployed to northern Syria and really pay homage to the idea of Obama initiating World War 3.

Some of the underlying malware spread by this scam are exploit kits like Blackhole and others where users are automatically redirected to load such malware from a malicious web page.

Hackers and cybercrooks are always in the business of exploiting some type of legitimate news organization. Just last month a campaign was launched by cybercrooks to exploit open redirect vulnerabilities on the CNN website to flood Twitter users with spam.

Newsletters, or what we know as electronic emails sent out as a periodical featuring highlighted bulletins to subscribed members, can carry malware or malicious links just like common spam messages. Recently, cybercrooks have taken to bogus newsletters claiming to be from a legitimate news source for spreading malware. It is highly advisable that before you click on the unsubscribe buttons on questionable or unwanted newsletters, hover your mouse on the button to see where it will redirect you to. Most times, unsubscribe links or various links within an enticing story, such as the idea of World War 3 starting in Syria, will redirect you to a malicious page that spreads malware.

Since World War 3 won't be starting any time soon, it behooves you to prevent your own little war on your computer due to a serious malware infection by avoiding potentially malicious links in faux newsletters that you may receive.