Erin Andrews Video: Get A Life Or Get A Virus

It was early Sunday morning British time when I first heard the name "Erin Andrews." I didn't have a clue who she was -- I don't follow the American sports scene -- but one thing was certain: She was creating an enormous buzz on the Internet.The reason? Some low-life had filmed the knock-dead-gorgeous Andrews covertly through the peephole of the door of her hotel room as she undressed. That was bad enough, but this sleazeball then decided to upload the video to the Internet -- where there is a long history of material changing hands that no one would admit to in front of their grandmother.

But it got worse. Although Andrews' legal team were quick to spring into action and demand that the movies were removed from video-sharing Websites, that didn't stop hackers from setting up Websites claiming to contain the controversial content and planting malware alongside it.

Watch the following video, and you'll see how cybercriminals even created a passable forgery of CNN's Website. Their intention? To fool the unwary into clicking on a link that installs Mac OS X malware if you visit from an Apple computer, and Windows malware if you prefer to have more than one button on your mouse.

The sad thing is, even though the media has been warning users about the virus threat from watching the Erin Andrews Peephole video, plenty of hackers are still posting blog comments driving curious users into danger by sharing secret links "where the video can still be seen."

Don't say you weren't warned. But if you do go hunting for the Erin Andrews Peephole video, then don't be surprised if it's not just your mind that ends up corrupted, but your computer, too.

Graham Cluley is senior technology consultant at Sophos, and has been working in the computer security field since the early 1990s. When he's not updating his other blog on the Sophos website, you can find him on Twitter at @gcluley. Special to Dark Reading.