JPEG-based virus attack gets closer
Costin Raiu, the head of research and development for Kaspersky Labs Romania, said on Tuesday that over the weekend a virus writer tried to spread a Trojan by exploiting a known image-handling flaw. This flaw was patched by Microsoft last year, but it is likely that some users are still vulnerable, particularly as the flaw affected a number of Microsoft's products.
As with all previous attempts at exploiting this particular flaw, the malicious code was not successful, but Raiu was concerned that next time a virus writer may succeed. "This time at least, the JPEG file wasn't infectious. However, fixing the mistake would be relatively easy and we wouldn't be surprised to see a second wave, this time with a working exploit," said Raiu in a blog posting.
David Emm, a senior technology consultant at Kaspersky Lab, said on Thursday that this incident "takes us as close as we've been to a successful exploit".
He was uncertain how soon a working exploit will appear, but it is likely to depend on whether virus writers see such a flaw as a good way of opening a back door to PCs to obtain data.
