CYBERSPACE — Who doesn’t love to click on a spam email attachment just to see what kind of fun it might contain? If a recent Trojan attack featuring frolicking arctic pranksters is any indication, even iPhone addicts can make stupid mistakes.Penguin Panic is nothing new. In fact, it’s been circulating on a number of platforms and in a number of formats for some time – but recently it started showing up in mail accounts with the subject line “Apple: The most popular game” claiming to be the popular accelerometer driven game.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong is the Trojan that tags along; a Trojan not targeted at iPhones specifically but at the Windows operating system that runs those iPhone owners’ desk or laptop systems.

Some might suggest that the Trojan is a form of natural selection, since the spam it rides in on assures clickers that activating the attachment will earn them a free iPhone. Perhaps those eager to click on the link were hoping to get a cheap gift for a friend?

Fortunately for the greedy or generous schmuck with the itchy mouse finger, executing the malware results in a fairly benign infection; specifically, the utterance of the word “shoes” and the deletion of a few files that break some iPhone apps.

According to Sophos, PenguinPanic.zip arrives in inboxes hoping to lure those familiar with its iPhone playability into setting new records on their tabletop systems. What they get is Troj/Agent-HNY.

App junkies who run Mac OS X or Linux – or just use their iPhones or other similar devices are spared the freezing self-incrimination that Penguin Panic brings to Windows box users – but the core issue, according to experts, isn’t so much what operating system one uses but how much common sense is applied while using it.

While it’s understandable that experimenting with new applications can make one excitable, executing an unvetted app is foolhardy in the extreme.