Spammers took advantage of the Zeus botnet earlier this month to spread a phishing email claiming that “Romney will soon be President” – the links in the email pretended to be from CNN – but instead took those who were clicking them to a fake site laden with malware waiting to infect them machines – a so-called “Blackhole” exploit kit. Details here… SC Magazine.
That really seems to have been all there has been so-far in the US Presidential election.. really quite surprising really…. but be forewarned – this might not be the last we see of Election 2012 and malware relating to it. Tomorrow being the official polling day, I predict that we will see a rush of phishing or spam emails, again, targeting those that receive them to sites with malware exploits… the day is just too big for malware infectors to ignore in my opinion – and I expect to see this last for days if there is a very tight race with legal arguments over the result. Why? Because people get wrapped up in the passion for the event – no matter which side you are on, the election will raise blood-pressures and that lowers inhibitions – links *will* get clicked – even by those who are normally so careful about links in emails etc.
That is why I believe we have seen so little malware infection relating to the election – I believe they’re holding back until tomorrow – or Wednesday… the flood will come…. just wait and see…