UFO spam hides a Trojan horse

Security experts have warned that emails claiming to contain a video from the CNN news organisation reporting contact with extra-terrestrials should be ignored.

The video attached to the email actually contains a Trojan horse rather than the promised report on aliens sending 'cartoon' messages to humanity, said Trend Micro.

A number of other hoax emails with rogue video files attached appearing to be sent by other news outlets such as the BBC also use topics other than UFOs to try and pique our interest.

One of the messages comes with the subject line "Hot News: Gene modified rabbits go wild!".

"The address bars and subject fields carry sensational headlines whose details supposedly are in the attached video," said Florabel Baetiong of Trend Micro.

"The attachment is a compressed file, which when opened contains not a video but a malicious executable file named Exclusive.Cut.avi.exe," she continued.

Trend Micro advised surfers to be cautious of unsolicited and unexpected email messages, as the attachments they carry may be harmful to systems.

www.trendmicro.com