According to leading security software firm Sophos, emails purporting to contain nude images of the female movie stars are prompting many computer users to open file attachments infected with a Trojan downloader virus.

The emails typically have an attached file called ‘amazing.zip' or ‘shocking.zip' and contain a message along the lines of:
Good morning, old chap!
Shocking video of nude Angelina Jolie. See it in your attachment.
Best Regards.

If opened, the file links install a rootkit and download further malicious code from the internet.

Sophos Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley suggests computers users should "practise safe computing", urging them to think twice before opening unsolicited email attachments.

"That means not only running an up-to-date anti-virus, security patches and firewall - but also exercising caution over what programs you decide to run on your computer," he said. "You should always think twice before opening a file that unexpectedly arrives in your email inbox."

He pointed out that while cyber-criminals use of such social engineering techniques in spreading malicious content is nothing new, this has not stopped it from being an effective way for hackers to plant code providing them with access to unsuspecting users' computers.

Sophos has updated its anti-virus products to detect the malicious attachment as "Troj/Dloadr-BCP".

This is not the first time female celebrities have been used as bait in spreading a viral infection through computers. Similar virus campaigns have in the past been built around music, screen and sporting sirens Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Halle Berry, Avril Lavigne, Anna Kournikova, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez.