‘Steve Jobs Alive!’ Spam Spreads Waledac.C Trojan

Although most of us have hopes of humanity finding a way to defeat entropy, recent attacks by spammers have taken to exploiting this thread of optimism in humanity with fake 'Steve Jobs Alive!' spam e-mail messages. 'Steve Jobs Alive!' spam messages contain links to a website that hosts Waledac.C, a dropper Trojan and backdoor Trojan that installs other forms of harmful software on your PC while also allowing criminals to use your computer as another node in their e-mail spam network. Just clicking on a 'Steve Jobs Alive!' link may be enough to infect your computer, and SpywareRemove.com malware experts discourage you from trusting any 'Steve Jobs Alive!' e-mail messages that find their way to your virtual mailbox. If you think that you've been infected by a 'Steve Jobs Alive!' spammer's Trojan, you should scan your PC with anti-malware software that can remove such Trojans – and be thorough enough to catch anything else that the 'Steve Jobs Alive!' Trojan may have installed, as well.

Putting Mr. Jobs Back to Rest with the Truth About the 'Steve Jobs Alive!' E-Mail

'Steve Jobs Alive!' spam messages consist of the subject line as noted in their title and the following message in the e-mail's body:

Check It Out: [Malicious URL]

Unfortunately, the 'Steve Jobs Alive!' news is fake, and the world will have to continue turning without this famous Apple entrepreneur's presence... but spammers are using the hope of Mac fans as a pathway to infect their computers with spam-enabling Trojans. If you fall for the scam and click this link, the 'Steve Jobs Alive!' link will direct you to a website that infects your computer with Win32/Waledac.C, a backdoor and dropper also known as Generic Dropper.lr.gen.a and Trojan.Downloader.Bredolab.CZ (depending on which type of anti-malware program detects it).

Waledac.C Trojans have no purposes beyond installing other forms of hostile software without your consent. As a result, SpywareRemove.com malware experts note that their symptoms can be unnoticeable or change from one infection to the next one. However, all Waledac.C infections can be considered hostile, and you should take steps to clean your PC if you've had contact with a 'Steve Jobs Alive!' spam link.

Accompanying Threats for the Living in a 'Steve Jobs Alive!' Spam Trojan

Dropper Trojans like Win32/Waledac.C may be very flexible in their payloads, but SpywareRemove.com malware researchers have found that some dangers are more likely than others in a Waledac.C infection. Probable threats to your PC include:

• The installation of other Trojans from the Waledac family. In most cases, these Trojans are installed to force the infected PC to become part of a spambot network – a network that uses the resources of infected computers to send spam e-mail messages out to indiscriminate targets. Variants may also steal private information or attack your security settings

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• The installation of rogue security programs, such as Personal Shield Pro, Antivirus 2008, Total Security or Antispyware Pro 2009. These scamware products will create fake infection warnings and other pop-ups in an attempt to make you purchase their fraudulent software to stop the warnings from appearing. However, they have no real anti-virus or security features and should be deleted whenever possible.