With a sick email malware campaign, pond dwelling scumbags are claiming to have kidnapped the children of would-be targets of infection.

The contemptible junk mail messages attempt to panic recipients into opening email attachment supposedly carrying images of abducted infants but in reality loaded with a variant of the Resex information stealing Trojan.

Net security firm Sophos reports that the malicious emails come with subject lines such as "We have hijacked your baby" and claim a $50,000 reward is needed for the child's safe return. Images of the email can be found here

Lucre-loving malware authors have few scruples using national or internal disasters or fictitious news events - up to and including the supposed outbreak of World War III - to punt their wares. But even by these debased standards, the Resex Trojan lure represents a new low.

Fortunately, few people have thus far fallen for the trick. Sophos said that incidents of infection by the Trojan remain, well, low. ®