MANILA, Philippines – Spammers are using the upcoming Beijing Olympics and the recent China earthquake tragedy to trick people into downloading malware , software security firm Symantec said in its July 2008 report on spam.

The company said that the deadly China earthquake in May this year was used to spread viruses through email. A computer Trojan, known as "Trojan.Peacom.D," was embedded in email messages as a video link, purportedly showing footages of the tragedy. When users click on the link, which has a file name "Beijing.exe," the Trojan is launched and gathers system information and email addresses from the compromised computer.

As the Beijing Olympics draws nearer, Symantec said spammers are now using fake lotteries to spread malware.

Symantec found a scam in the form of an alleged email lottery conducted by the Beijing Olympic Committee. An email is sent to a recipient announcing that he or she has won nearly a million dollars. The recipient is instructed to fill up a seemingly legitimate form, or to click on a web address. Although there are no known viruses spread through the scam email and in clicking the URL, users are warned not to respond as the perpetrators might eventually request for more sensitive data, such as credit cards and bank accounts.

Symantec also noted an increase in spamming of bogus news events. When users click on a link in a spam email message, the user inadvertently opens his or her computer to other spammers.

Symantec reported that spam continues to increase worldwide, with 22 percent of which are about products and another 19 percent related to financial services.

Incidentally, pornography-related spam has gone down to just about five percent, lower than scamming and fraud-related spam, which comprises 14 percent of all spam traffic in July.