Hackers Promise 'Nude Angelina Jolie' Pics To Plant Malware

A security company is warning IT managers and users that hackers are tempting people to open malicious e-mail attachments by promising them pictures of naked actresses, including Angelina Jolie.

Sophos reported Thursday that a widespread spam campaign purports to contain shocking nude pictures of several different actresses, including Jolie, Nicole Kidman, and Natalie Portman. The attachment actually contains a rootkit and the Dloadr-BCP Trojan. It doesn't, however, contain any photos.

The Dloadr-BCP Trojan, which affects the Windows platform, pulls in more malware from the Internet and drops it into the infected computer. Hours after discovering it, Sophos gave the malware a low-to-medium prevalence rating.

"These e-mails are masquerading as pornographic content, tempting the unwary into opening a file on their Windows computer which will install a rootkit and download further malicious code from the internet," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, in a written statement. "This kind of social engineering trick is nothing new. In fact, it has been used so often by cybercriminals that it sometimes feels like it's been around since the days of the silent movies. However, that hasn't stopped it from being an effective way to fool many people into running code designed to allow hackers to break into computers."

Sophos researchers reported spotting the spam attack Thursday.

The body of the e-mail message is generally similar to this one: "Good day, dear. Shocking photos of nude Nicole Kidman. See it in your attachment."

The e-mail messages contain a single .ZIP attachment, which is called amazing.zip, according to Sophos. The attachment holds one executable -- shocking.exe.

This past April, hackers launched a spam campaign to take advantage of the .ANI vulnerability by promising nude pictures of Britney Spears to lure users to malicious sites. In the past, names of other celebrities, including Paris Hilton, Halle Berry, and Jennifer Lopez, have been used similarly.