KEY POINTS:
A group of spammers, with a fondness for using celebrity names in its spam, is now controlling a network of compromised computers large enough to rival the massive 'Storm Worm' botnet.
A botnet is a network of computers that are under the control of hackers, usually with the rightful owner blissfully unaware that their machines have been hijacked.
Botnets, with their massive computing power, are used to distribute vast amounts of spam by email that usually contains malware that will allow the cyber crooks to steal personal information like passwords.
If not caught, the spammer's botnet networks will grow exponentially.
The group is now responsible for more than 20 per cent of all spam in circulation, according to New Zealand-based internet security specialist Marshal.
The Celebrity Gang, which uses subject lines about nude celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Britney Spears, has been building its botnet since August 2006.
Other subject lines that the gang use to deliver malware to computers include Windows Security Updates and promises of free games.
"The gang now controls a sizable botnet that generates significant volumes of spam - enough to put them right up there with the current kings of spam, the Storm Gang," says Bradley Anstis, Marshal's VP of products.
"We consider them "copycats" because they have followed the Storm Gang's approach of spamming out malware in order to expand their botnet and in turn build the capacity to generate greater numbers of spam messages,"
Anstis is surprised that internet users are still falling for dodgy tricks to entice them into opening potentially dangerous emails, and says PC users should not open executable files attached to emails from unknown addresses - and recommends avoiding opening anything with 'nude celebrity' references in the subject line.
"The Celebrity Spam Gang is using a common but proven means of social engineering to fool email recipients into infecting themselves with the botware. They are emulating the Storm Gang but using arguably less sophisticated methods.
"It is a concern to us that so many computer users are still being taken in by what we would consider to be an obvious subterfuge as 'check out this nude Britney Spears game'. The Storm Gang has been more inventive with their campaigns and exploited everything from news headlines to greeting cards. There is clearly a need for renewed awareness and education," said Anstis.
Anstis says Marshal's TRACE threat monitoring team predicted spammers would try to emulate the Storm example, and try to establish wide-reaching and powerful botnets.
"The Celebrity Spam Gang has been on our radar for a while but it was not until now that we realised the scale they have achieved with their botnet.
"We deliberately infected a test computer with the Celebrity Gang botnet and then closely monitored its behaviour and the make-up of spam it was instructed to send by the spammers. We were able to match this spam against 23 per cent of all spam we saw in circulation for the previous month. It was a little bit of a surprise to learn how significant a spam player they had become."
