Bloody photos of Gaddafi used as bait in malware-laden email run

As predicted, the violent death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi has been taken advantage of by cyber criminals in order to trick gore-hungry users into downloading malware:

Sophos reports that the subject line of the spam email makes it look like the bloody photos are coming from the AFP news agency, but the attached Bloody Photos_Gadhafi_Death.rar file is actually a worm that spreads using IRC.

It opens a backdoor into the affected machine and allows attackers to access it remotely and to make the machine part of an IRC-controlled botnet.

As always, users are advised not open unsolicited emails, attachments or links contained in them, especially when they supposedly offer insight into a hot news topic. Visiting legitimate news sites is a much better option if you are interested in the latest happenings.