NEWS FROM THE FRONT
The current generation of attacks is focused on getting the victim to take action by clicking on a link to navigate to a malicious website, where the attackers can download Trojans, steal personal information and turn the machine into a zombie. This process is called "multi-stage monetization" (see "And the Bot Goes On," below), as an attacker builds a long-term relationship with the victim to turn the device into a profit-generating bot.

Why does this continue to work? Basically, despite all the news stories, commercials about identity theft and other warnings, there are still enough gullible users. It's why con artists continue to live off variations on the same tricks decade after decade.

They may use timely news topics--"See Britney Spears in the Nude or "Bin Laden Reported Dead"--that they hope will generate a lot of clicks. Or, they'll send "holiday greetings" attacks in the form of electronic cards to lure you.

The spammers continue to innovate at an astonishing rate; today, the road to email hell tends to run through Google. Spammers' latest ploy is to have Google index their malicious Web sites, then send around links to Google searches--as opposed to direct links to the sites. That's more likely to fool even an educated user.

"If you click the link, which...

This is effective because no Web filters are going to block links directly to Google. To add insult to injury, the bad guys can also get advertising revenue through this attack vector.

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CLICK HERE for the "multi-stage monetization" process (PDF).

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