Cyber-crooks celebrate independence

With the US gearing up to celebrate its Independence Day on the 4th and the release of the iPhone scheduled for the 11th, the first two weeks of July could be a busy time for malware, according to security firm MX Logic.

The company predicted in its monthly threat forecast that both events will be used as bait for attackers.

MX Logic noted that the 4th of July was used by Storm last year to spread itself to new users.

The malware writers behind the Storm botnet often make use of current events and holidays when crafting their social engineering attacks, and the company said that it doesn't expect this year to be any different.

It did not take long for the prediction to be proven accurate. On Thursday afternoon, F-Secure reported a run of Storm spam offering video of a fireworks display. Attempting to watch the 'video' file leads to the download of the Storm trojan.

If MX Logic's other prediction for July is correct, another attack may be just around the corner. The security firm expects the release of the iPhone 3G on July 11th to be the catalyst for another round of cybercrime.

"MX Logic expects significant spam, scams and malware campaigns surrounding the highly anticipated July 11th release of Apple’s new iPhone," the company said.

"Scams will be especially prevalent if supply doesn’t meet demand."

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