Intellectual Property Law

Online con artists made full use of the world's focus on Barack Obama Tuesday night by launching a massive spam campaign that aims to make individuals' computers part of an online zombie network.

Security companies began reporting the attack Wednesday morning, putting the number of e-mails being sent out in the hundreds of thousands.

Security company MX Logic reported Wednesday morning that the number of messages it has seen within the first two hours of the launch of the campaign added up to almost a million.

The e-mails direct their recipients to phony web sites that tell viewers that they must download a Flash plug-in to view Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Clicking on the download results in the download of a file named adobe_flash9.exe, but the file actually contains malicious software that takes over people's computers.

"From what we are seeing so far, the social engineering tactic being used coupled with the interest of the election and its outcome, high volumes of this tactic are already being observed as many users are being tricked and infecting their PCs with this malware which will be used to send out more of this type of spam," writes Sam Masiello, vice president of information security at MX Logic.

Like other security companies that monitor spamming trends, the company sets up "spam traps." Masiello reports that its traps are receiving spoofed e-mails that look as if they're coming from brand name news organizations. Among them are: news@bbc.com; news@cnn.com; election@usatoday.com.The subject lines are variously titled: "Barack Obama Wins;" "Election Night Results;" and "Fear of a Black President."

This campaign is the latest one of several that has capitalized on the nation's (and the world's) high level of interest in the election at key moments during the campaign.

Trend Micro's blog has a good round up of these scams.