Security company Sophos warned users last week that spammers are exploiting the highly popular video Web site YouTube in an attempt to promote their own goods and online stores. The cyber criminals are dropping their spam messages in the 'comments' section of the 'invite-a-friend' service on YouTube, enabling them to send out spam that flies under the normal anti-spam radar.
"Normally spammers take over innocent people's PCs to send their unwanted messages across the Internet," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, in a written message. "In this case, however, they don't need to do that. Instead, they are using a Web site to relay a message to their intended audience. "The criminals are hoping that by embedding themselves inside a YouTube e-mail, they will be able to slip past spam filters at the recipient's e-mail gateway(GTW)."
Researchers noted that the spam e-mails they've seen are set up to appear to come from the e-mail address 'service@youtube.com.' The body message tries to lure users to visit dating Web sites or they come out and offer prizes like the recently released Halo 3 game for the Xbox 360 console.
"This is hardly the most compelling example of a spammer advertising his wares to an Internet user," said Cluley. "It may be an effective way of waltzing past some spam defenses... Nevertheless, it doesn't require many positive responses for the spammers' efforts to have been worthwhile."
This isn't the first time cyber criminals have taken advantage of YouTube's popularity.
This past August, scammers were sending out e-mails posing as links to a fraudulent YouTubevideo. Instead of a video, users' machines were infected with a variant of the Storm worm.
The famous boy who never grows up (or old), prefers instead to cavort with fairies and fight one-handed pirates on the magical isle of Neverland.
9.DRACULAIf you're really desperate to live forever, you could try getting bitten by Dracula or one of his vampire underlings. But then you'll have to avoid Italian food and do nasty things like drink blood, avoid sunlight and sleep in coffins.
8.LAZARUS LONG
A character in many of Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels, Lazarus' long life is the result of a selective breeding program and occasional blood rejuvenation treatments. Lazarus lives to be over 2,000 years old; he travels to distant planets and even through time, and works every conceivable job, from doctor to slave.
7.NICHOLAS FLAMEL
In "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," Nicolas Flamel is a good friend of Hogwart's headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Author J.K. Rowling based Flamel's character on a real-life French 15th-century alchemist who legend claims successfully created the Philosopher's Stone, a mythical elixir that turns lead into gold and grants eternal life.
6.TITHONUS
When the Greek goddess Eos asks Zeus to grant her mortal lover, Tithonus, eternal life, she forgets to also ask for eternal youth. Tithonus indeed lives forever, but he grows old and frail, and begs for death. Some stories say that Tithonus eventually became a grasshopper.
5.DORIAN GRAY
An Oscar Wilde character that remains young and handsome while his portrait ages. Dorian slowly becomes corrupt, but his crimes and his true age show only in the face of the painting, which grows progressively more monstrous and withered.
4.HIGHLANDER
In the 1986 movie "Highlander," Connor MacLeod is a member of the immortals, a mysterious race who die only when their heads are lopped off. The immortals must battle each other until only one is left to claim The Prize: The gift of mortality and the ability to die like everyone else. 
No comments:
Post a Comment