A word to the wise about those Erin Andrews pix

You do know that they're filled with malware, don't you?

Supposed hidden camera footage of US sports reporter Erin Andrews on offer online often leads to malware, security firm Sophos warns.

Websites claiming to provide nude video of glamorous ESPN reporter Erin Andrews are in reality a trick designed to trick both Windows and Mac surfers into installing malware. Hackers are taking advantage of hype around supposedly covert footage of the glamorous reporter to distribute Trojan horse malware.

Malicious code ultimately designed to fleece users by tricking them into buying rogue security software of little or no utility is hosted on sites that can pose as affiliates of reputable news outlets, such as CNN. In reality the sites are complete fakes, but smut-seeking surfers might still find their way onto them anyway because of the use of black hat search engine optimisation techniques.

So if you absolutely must chase smut, don't use Internet Explorer, don't click through to any "security" sites you see advertised at the smut shop, and don't download any helpful "security" programs from the smutters.

I kind of think that this all goes without saying, but a million pwned computers in the global botnet zombiepocalypse army would tell me that I'd be wrong.