Revenge of the Phishers

[Thugilex]

Never ones to miss out on the opportunity to hijack some popular culture to spread their evil wares, virus makers have been attacking IM services with a worm and phishing scam around the new Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith.

AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger users have reportedly been targeted by the virus. In the case of the AOL worm, the message text adds: "hehe, i found this funny movie." The word "this" is a hyperlink. The Yahoo! message references "StarGames" in the link.

The AOL message downloads malicious code which experts warn could grant someone control over your computer - the Yahoo! one, meanwhile, is a phishing scam redirecting to a page which looks like Yahoo! and encourages visitors to enter personal details.

McAfee warned there had only been one report of the AOL worm in the wild so far, but it could spread over the coming days.

View: AOL Instant Messenger
View: CNet coverage