New Stripper Virus Entices Windows Users to Break Captchas for Spammers - If Melissa Asks You to Help Her Strip, Just Say No! - 3,107 Views, 1 Comment

Summary: In a new twist, web spammers are using images of a stripper named Melissa to dupe naive Windows users into helping them break CAPTCHAs - those "enter this text" images that websites rely on to keep spammers from posting spam on their site. Dubbed the CAPTCHA.a or Captchar.a virus, an infected Windows computer will display a picture of Melissa, who promises to remove an article of clothing for each "puzzle" that the user solves.

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In a new twist, web spammers are using images of a stripper named Melissa to dupe naive Windows users into helping them break CAPTCHAs - those “enter this text” images that websites rely on to keep spammers from posting spam on their site.

Dubbed the CAPTCHA.a or Captchar.a virus, an infected Windows computer will display a picture of Melissa, who promises to remove an article of clothing for each “puzzle” that the user solves. The puzzles are actually CAPTCHA codes which the spammers have harvested, and by ’solving the puzzle’ the user is helping the spammers to break the code.

The virus then transmits the cracked codes back to the hackers and spammers who, according to security company Symantec, are in Israel.

So, no matter how enticing, if a stripper suddenly shows up on your Windows computer, give her the boot!

Have any of our readers seen this? We’d love screen shots!

New Stripper Virus Entices Windows Users to Break Captchas for Spammers - If Melissa Asks You to Help Her Strip, Just Say No!

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1 Comment »

sorry “melissa” i prefer real girls, taking off real clothing, pixels on a screen just don’t do it for me.
“gunner”

Comment by "gunner" — 11/5/2007 @ 5:18 pm

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This article first appeared on 11/2/2007

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