Spicy Pictures Whammy Users With Spyware

And now for the biggest surprise of the day: Malware goons are using spicy pictures to install Trojan horses on the computers of excited users. Online security firm Sophos recently reported that the picture slideshow of an exotic young Russian named "Victoria Stasova" is installing a vicious Trojan that nabs information from an aroused user's system.

Presenting the scantily-clad Russian through a three-frame slideshow, the Troj/Keylog-HD Trojan steals keystrokes and personal data from the infected PC. Graham Cluely, a tech consultant for Sophos, believes that many excited users will be duped by the slideshow.

"The danger is that people might think they are just looking at pictures of a Russian beauty who is on the lookout for love," Cluely states. "Instead, users are finding passwords and usernames being stealthily extracted." (Source: hackinthebox.org)

In an almost laughable comment, Cluely argues that the sexy slideshow might be most damaging to those who have been chatting romantically with someone online.

But, is this the first time this has happened?

Two years ago, the fairer sex was propositioned by Spyware thugs using stories and in some cases images of David Beckham. In that case, a Trojan horse was being spread under the pretense of reports that Beckham, star English soccer player, was cheating on his wife, former Spice Girl Victoria (no relationship to "Stasova").

In that case, Cluely was again "on the ball", proclaiming to the media that "The public's appetite for salacious gossip about the private life of the Beckhams might lead some into an unpleasant computer infection." (Source: sophos.com)

Thank you, Captain Obvious.