Osama Bin Laden Virus Emails
Summary:Emails claim that Osama Bin Laden has been captured or hanged and ask recipients to open an attachment or follow a link for more information (
Full commentary below.)
Status:False - Bin Laden has not be captured. The message lead to a trojan
2006 Update:While the trojan discussed is real, it is no longer considered to be a significant threat and warnings about the trojan that continue to circulate are highly inaccurate and counter-productive (See commentary below for details).
Example:(Submitted, July 2005)
Turn on your TV!!!
Osama Bin Laden has been captured. While CNN has no pictures at this point of time, the military channel (PPV) released some. I managed to capture a couple of these pictures off my TV. Ive attached a slideshow containing all the pictures I managed to capture. I apologize for the low quality, its the best I could do at this point of time. Hopefully CNN will have pictures and a video soon.
God bless the USA!
Commentary:
In 2005, emails were circulating that claimed that Osama Bin Laden had been captured or had been found hanged. The information in these emails is false. Bin Laden has not been captured.
Opening the attachment that came with these emails or clicking on a link in the message may have installed a malicious trojan on the recipient's computer. There were several versions of the message. Some carried an attachment that supposedly contained photographs of the capture. Others included a link to a website that supposedly showed pictures or news footage of Osama Bin Laden's arrest.
Other malicious messages that used similar false information about Osama Bin Laden were also distributed in 2004.
As well as the trojan bearing messages themselves, a number of warning emails about the messages began to circulate. The emails warn recipients about the danger of opening messages about Bin Laden. Although the danger was real, the warning messages are seriously exaggerated. The trojan that came with the Bin Laden emails was certainly malicious, but it was unlikely to damage the infected computer to such an extent that it could not be repaired. One of these warnings is included below:
Just now a message was received from the Israeli police:
Emails with pictures of Osama Bin-Laden hanged are being sent and the moment that you open these emails your computer will crash and you will not be able to fix it!!!
This e-mail is being distributed through countries around the globe, but
mainly in the US and Israel.
Fake information about famous (or infamous) people is often used as a means of distributing email worms or trojans. In June, 2005 an
email message about the apparent suicide of Michael Jackson directed recipients to a website that downloaded a trojan.
Hackers and virus writers use many different ruses in order to trick recipients into infecting their computers.
If you receive a message similar to the ones shown above, DO NOT open any attachments that arrive with the email. DO NOT click on any links included in the email. The best way to protect yourself from threats of this nature is to ensure that your computer is protected by up-to-date anti-virus software and an Internet firewall.
Update October 2006:
The threat posed by the trojan described in this article has
long since ceased to be a significant danger. However, garbled and highly inaccurate
warning messages about this trojan continue to circulate. One of these messages combines a highly exaggerated warning about the Bin Laden trojan discussed here with totally false information about a non-existent "Olympic Torch" virus. These warnings do no good and should not be forwarded.
References:
Fake Bin Laden e-mail hides virus
"Osama Captured" E-mail Trojan Infected
Trend Micro: Osama Bin Laden Virus Warning Hoax
Bin-Laden and Olympic Torch Virus Warning Hoax
Last updated: 16th October 2006
First published: July 2005
Write-up by Brett M. Christensen
