Attack of the Trojan Horse - Storm Worm

According to Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer for F-Secure, malicious emails containing "Storm Worm" were sent across the globe to hundred of thousands of people during an eight-hour period on Thursday.

Storm Worm is known to be one of the larger Trojan horse attacks in recent years. The technique employed by this variant of worm is baiting people with timely information about a deadly, real-storm front. Recipients who opened the attachment result in their computer unknowingly becoming part of a botnet. (A botnet is generally known for a computer that has become a slave belonging to a large army of computers which hackers used to attack other computers or network of computers without owners' knowledge.)
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Email containing Storm Worm carries the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe. Since Storm Worm is a Trojan horse with an executable file as an attachment, the recipient must open the file for the infection to be activated on the victim's computer. Upon activation, the file creates a back door on the computer for the attacker to exploit.

Generally, most Trojan attacks these days are aimed at stealing personal information for financial gain, rather than for fame, a couple of years ago. Users are encouraged to ensure proper anti-virus and firewall solutions are set up on the computer to prevent such exploitations. However, it is ultimately the responsibility of computer owners to ensure that emails are safe before opening any potential unknown attachments.