Hackers and phishers are taking advantage of your need for election news by using President-elect Barack Obama’s name to get you to click on links and run programs that will infect your machine with malware.

The latest deception involves sending email with a link to President-elect Obama’s victory speech.  The link will take you to a website that requires you to  install the Adobe Flash plug-in.  Not true.  The plug-in is really a Trojan horse that installs malware on the machine.

Here is an excerpt of the the email that has been going around:

From: “President election results”
Subject: A new president, a new congress …
Barack Obama Elected 44th President of United States

Barack Obama, unknown to most Americans just four years ago, will become the 44th president and the first African-American president of the United States.
Watch His amazing speech by clicking here

What does it do?

The Trojan’s main purpose is to steal passwords.  It runs in the background and looks for passwords, and can act as a keystroke logger.

Removal

You can remove the Trojan if you have your anti-virus software up to date.  In fact, if you do, your anti-virus will most likely stop you from getting infected, as it will identify the program as being a Trojan and prevent installation.  Don’t take any chances though.  Simply delete emails from sources you don’t know that ask you to click on links.

More Reading

McAfee Info
http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_153274.htm