by Keith Lubsen

Within a short time of President Elect Barack Obama’s victory hundreds of thousands of Phishing emails about him and his family flooded the Internet. Some of the emails (sent by criminals to unsuspecting recipients) promise a video of an “amazing speech” but actually contain malware named the “Obama-Trojan.”

Be wary of email news about the President Elect

I received another phishing email this evening from “NEWS Sensation” with the subject line “Michelle Obama died.”   Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to take the bait and become victims of these recent phishing scams.

Malware, such as the ”Obama-Trojan” is capable of compromising the infected computer users’ data and can lead to identity theft, a botnet taking over your PC and other such crimes.

These criminal operations are not only using the highest office in the USA to bait their phishing hooks. In fact they will use any big news story, like the financial crisis, Wall Street movements or even a made up story (like “Michelle Obama died”) to catch potential victim’s attention and tempt them into opening and clicking on an email link.

Cyber criminals are running lawlessly from scam to scam, operating from locations in the world where even if they are found it is nearly impossible to prosecute them. Think of the jurisdictional headache of a law officer in Nebraska first trying to locate and then prosecute a crook who stole money from a US citizen by means of identity theft when the crime was conducted by someone in Mongolia.

Some defenses include diligently protecting your computer system via firewall, Antivirus, regular operating system updates and knowing how to spot a phish.

This virtual world has its parallels to the old Wild West, where it was wise to be prepared in order to protect yourself.