On May 21, 2008, Sophos, an IT Security and control firm, advised the computer users worldwide not to click on or open any unknown e-mails irrespective of the subject line. This was followed by the discovery of a Trojan horse being used as a news report regarding the earthquakes in China.

The security experts at Sophos said that scam has emerged as the recent technique that the cyber criminals have been employing since the latest disasters in Burma and China. They also caution about the phishing mails, which install harmful code on user's systems without informing them.

Sophos tells about a Trojan horse called as Troj/MalDoc-Fam, which appears in the inbox of the user as a news item and asks recipient to click on the attached link for reading the news. After this, the hackers make use of this personal for monetary gains and identity theft.

The researchers at Sophos gave an example of a spammed mail: BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) - the death ratio due to earthquake in the southwest China's Sichuan has increased to 34,074 nationwide as of 2 p.m on May 17, 2008. The Information Office of the State Council said that around 198,347 were found injured. Click on attachment for more news."

But on clicking the attachment an exploit occurs that installs more malware on the computer of the user.

Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, Graham Cluley, said that they have come across many instances where fraudsters have used natural disasters occurred in China and Burma and it appears that there is no stopping on this, as per the news of WebUser on May 21, 2008.

Security experts recommended that users should avoid opening mails from unknown source and should remain alert. Further, users should erase such mails which will completely ensure that the hackers will not fool them by appearing as victims of the earthquake and demanding money.