Obama, McCain Used in Malicious Spam Attacks

Security research firm Sophos on Wednesday discovered attackers have launched their own presidential campaign. Attempting to exploit President-elect Barack Obama's historic victory, the spam attack sends e-mails with the subject line "Obama win preferred in world poll" and a return address of news@president.com.

Clicking a link in the e-mail takes victims to a Web page that insists on downloading Adobe Flash 9 to view a video of the first African-American president's "amazing speech." The scam is this: It's not really Flash. It's dangerous malware.

Victims who download get a Trojan horse that Sophos has labeled Mal/Bahav-027. PC users infected with this malware could find their data compromised or have their identity stolen.