Idiotic Hacker/Spammer

[topr8]

anyone else been getting these emails:

they include a zip file, which doubtless does something darstardly if you open it.

here's the rub though ... the zip file is a password protected archive so you can't open it even if you tried! haha

i've been getting them for a while and Kaparsky is picking them up, however it keeps asking me for a password so it can scan the zip ... which is a bit annoying

however this annoyance is offset by the knowledge that some idiot is sending out millions of trojans and even the dumbest of end users is not going to be able to install them by accident!

[londrum]

maybe another hacker can hack the password

[Shaddows]

Actually, its the final instructions for sleeper cells embedded in every organisation in the country. Only the initiated can open them.

Mwahaha

[rocknbil]

A little searching reveals that this is one way spammers can get around Gmail filters, it appears it can't detect it as a virus/malware if it's password protected. (G may have even fixed it, it was an article from 2008.) But yeah, what's the point . . . I guess only that, spammers are paid on delivery, not payload deployment.

[kaled]

I'm guessing but maybe password-protected-zip-spam is sent to look for gullible people. For instance, if I sent a zip file to a friend but forgot to include the password, he might reply asking for the password.

From memory, there are only 64K distinguishable passwords for classic zip files so they can easily be cracked. (AES encryption was introduced by Winzip a few years ago.) Assuming that the zip file uses classic encryption, try using a cracking program to find out what's inside.

Kaled.

[ChanandlerBong]

the password is written on a text file.

Which is inside the zip file.

:-)