......uh, wow. The email will take you to a fake Flash download, just like the previous efforts:

Obviously, they haven't gotten around to making fake Msnbc pages so for now we're still stuck with the fake CNN pages.

An odd side-effect of these emails is that they're likely lowering subscriber numbers for CNN and Msnbc, because the emails contain genuine unsubscribe links at the bottom:

I doubt the creators of these scam mails intended that - they're just wanting to make the mails look realistic - but I could imagine disgruntled subscribers wondering why CNN and Msnbc keep sending them these things then reaching for the "no more, please!" link...

"Protect yourself from phishing: Paypal is working with Gmail and Yahoo! to block fake Paypal emails from your inbox. Learn how".

As it turns out, the email was legitimate - but as soon as I hear someone asking me "Can you spot a fake Email", my brain is sadly conditioned to assume the mail asking me that question is fake too.

Kind of depressing, isn't it? At any rate, it's interesting how certain words / phrases in mails will automatically set alarm bells ringing. If I'd received this email, I'd have deleted it as soon as I saw the phrase "Your download to win contest has arrived".

Download to Win Contest?? That sounds so very, very wrong, doesn't it?

....it's obvious that a huge spam wave is underway. These are, of course, related to the fake CNN Spam from a few days ago. Here, the emails take the form of "custom alerts":



I've seen two types of this mail - one links to a genuine CNN article from the headline text (with the smaller link underneath leading to an infection site), the other simply links to the infection site from both clickable links. As before, deleting these Emails is the best course of action. Interestingly, the format of these mails might not be working to the spammers advantage. Lots of people I've talked to who had one of these mails sent through simply deleted them without a second thought, thinking it was merely something on the real CNN they thought they'd signed up to and didn't actually want.

If you opened up any of the mails, you'd have seen this:

The first clue that something might have been amiss is the strangeness of some of the titles ("Michael Jackson sued by his own dog" isn't something I'd expect to see on CNN, at least not yet). Of course, the giveaway is that regardless of what link you click on, each one takes you to a website that isn't CNN.com - in fact, they all point to the same "video".

If you download and install the file offered up, horrible things will start happening to your PC. Let's put it this way - anyone expecting to see Michael Jacksons dog in a courtroom is going to be severely disappointed.

Before long, your desktop will look like this:


You'll have warnings like these:




And a rogue antivirus product will magically appear on your desktop:


Worst of all, look at the name of one of the fake infections they try to scare the user with.

There's subtlety, then there's this:



....if you want to avoid your computer contributing to the "terrorist threat", don't open up any emails claiming to contain CNN videos.

Even if its Michael Jackson and his dog.