Spam Offers Obama Critics the Means to Attack President's Websites

It would seem that new spam has been circulating the Internet recently, supposedly offering Obama opponents a way to use their computers to launch denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the website of current U.S. President, Barack Obama.

Cybercriminals are apparently hoping to stoke the fire still burning in many with political leanings that shy away from the Obama presidency, offering them a means to launch a protest, and no doubt download dangerous malware onto their computers in the process.

Typically this invitation is sent out in an email format, with the message reading: “If You don't like Obama come here, you can help to DDoS his site with your installs." While some might be suspicious right from the start after receiving an email such as this, those not so inclined may then click the link provided in the message.

This link will send the user to a website where visitors are offered money for installing the apparent denial of service software, which is advertised as offering the visitor the ability to generate and initiate DDoS attacks, according to a blog posting on the site of email security provider Proofpoint.

Now if this were not already raising alarm bells for some, the spam site goes on to explain that visitors should return often in order to receive updated versions of the purported denial of service software if their antivirus program is detecting it as malware and disabling it.

Here again should be where one reconsiders their political activism through the medium of cyber attack. If a program you are downloading is detected as malware on your security software, there is a good chance you should cease all further attempts at downloading that particular application.

Presently it is not known whether this software does turn your computer into a denial of service attack zombie, but it would be considered seriously foolish to expose your computer in that fashion, regardless of your political leanings.