Red Condor issued a warning about the latest spam campaign that contains a phishing ploy and a malware threat.

The email requests that recipients click on a link in the body of the email to update the "security mode" of their email box. Users that click on the link are taken to a web site that recommends that they update to the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player by downloading "flashinstaller.exe."

The executable is actually a banking Trojan that is known to disable firewalls, steal sensitive financial data and provide hackers with remote access capabilities.

The malware is more commonly known as Win32:Zbot-MGA (Avast), W32/Bifrost.C.gen!Eldorado (F-Prot), PWS-Zbot.gen.v (McAfee) or PWS:Win32/Zbot.gen!R (Micorsoft).

The spam campaign was detected late on November 20, 2009, and within the first six hours, Red Condor had blocked more than 500,000 emails. To date, Red Condor has stopped more than 3.5 million messages belonging to this campaign.

Dr. Tom Steding, president and CEO of Red Condor said: "Spam that suggests users update their Flash Player is a common type of scam during the holidays, but it is often associated with viewing a fake e-card or a viral video. We encourage email users, particularly those returning to full inboxes after the Thanksgiving holiday, to immediately delete these messages and notify their IT administrators."