Roundup: Western Union spam; Super Bowl SEO; Be a malicious hacker in Japan

A few items of note: There's a Western Union spam with Trojan payload; Beware Super Bowl hijinx this week; And if you really want to be a malicious hacker move to Japan.

Among the notable:

Western Union spam with Trojan

Sunbelt Software reports that it has seen a fair number of spams with a Trojan payload. The goal is to make you think there's a money transfer notification from Western Union.

For people that don't get transfers from Western Union this is just another lame spam. But for those folks that get Western Union transfers this email could do some damage.

Sunbelt reports the payload of these emails is Trojan.Perfloger. After the Trojan gets executed the victim sees a text file that looks fairly legit.

The Super Bowl of malware

The Super Bowl malware fun has begun. Leading up to Sunday's big game between the Pats and Giants the SEO results are going to be rigged to point you to malware.

It's a common refrain. Whenever there's a big event that'll result in searches you get SEO gamers.

Trend Micro pointed out that the SEO manipulation began a week ago. Look for more attempts as we get closer to the game.

Malicious hackers: Move to Japan

Symantec reports that the author of Trojan.Haradong and accomplices have been arrested in Japan, but not for creating malware. Why? There's no law against malware in Japan. Symantec writes:

The Trojan.Haradong author and his accomplices have been arrested, not for creating the so-called "Harada virus," but for unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. Unfortunately in Japan, there is no law prohibiting people from creating malware. There is a bill that was submitted to the National Diet several years ago but is still in its deliberation process and has yet to be passed. Hopefully, this arrest will raise the priority for legislators to pass a law banning the development and/or use of malware for malicious purposes. The law authorities sure can use the law because at the moment they are having to brainstorm ideas on what charges to arrest these type of criminals on.

Symantec has more background, but not all hackers are going to be nabbed on creative reasons for arrests. Japan could be a hacker haven.