Free Games E-Mail Delivers Free Malware Infection

The latest attempts to spread the virulent Storm Worm are hitting inboxes as supposed advertisements for free games. The McAfee Avert Labs blog has posted images of e-mails with subject lines of "1000+ Free Games!" and "Quick, grab this."

According to McAfee, the e-mails link to a Web page that will first attempt to use browser exploits to immediately bust your browser and install malware. If that fails (because you've wisely kept your browser and other programs up-to-date), any of the download links on the page will pull down the Storm Worm in the guise of a file named ArcadeWorld.exe.

One big tip-off that this is an attack is that the download link in the e-mail points to an IP address instead of a URL. Recent Storm e-mails hawking a supposedly free NFL Game Tracker did the same. But later NFL e-mails used a domain name, so don't let your guard down just because an e-mail link isn't an IP address.

Also be leery of any e-mails hawking free software. In addition to this new free game lure and the NFL software, the Storm Worm scumbags have used convincing-looking advertisements for a legit free product, the Tor anonymizer.

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