Naked celebs cover up worm

If you get an email promising to show you Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Natalie Portman in a state of undress be prepared for a big disappointment.

Because rather than well-known people with no clothes on, you'll be exposing yourself to a nasty worm that'll take control of your computer.

The mails come with an attachment called amazing.zip or shocking.zip.

"These emails are masquerading as pornographic content, tempting the unwary into opening a file on their Windows computer which will install a rootkit and download further malicious code from the internet," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

This isn't a new trick - Sophos pointed out that the same tactic has been used before, with emails promising glimpses of celebrities such as Anna Kournikova, Halle Berry and Paris Hilton in the buff.

"This kind of social engineering trick is nothing new - in fact it has been used so often by cybercriminals that it sometimes feels like it's been around since the days of the silent movies. However, that hasn't stopped it from being an effective way to fool many people into running code designed to allow hackers to break into computers."

www.sophos.com

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