The John Howard Heart Attack Email

The last few days there has been a malicious series of email sent mainly to Australians that attempt to trick people into clicking on a link in the email that will start downloading malware onto the person's computer.

According to AusCERT, this includes "multiple separate pieces of malware associated with this infection. Each piece of malware performs a different function, including the ability to disable any security features on the computer such as anti-virus software and firewalls and rootkit features designed to hide evidence of the infection. This means that it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the user to detect that they have been infected".

Further the AusCERT indicates that this attack doesn't propagate and will only attack computers that "which were vulnerable to infection because they had failed to keep their computer software such as the operating system and browser software patches up to date".

AusCERT has a great guide to Protecting you computer from malware available at Protecting your computer

I'll post a summary of the AusCERT article later today.