Viruses & Malware

About 8 million kronor, approximately US$1.2 million, has been stolen from the Scandinavian bank Nordea in what is thought to be the largest-ever IT scam targeted against a Swedish online bank.

Using a modified version of the "haxdoor" Trojan, hackers based in eastern Europe have stolen money from at least 250 private accounts. Swedish police have arrested seven individuals for involvement in the attacks. Another 121 suspects are wanted for questioning.

Nordea has been aware of the attacks for more than three months, but has yet to inform its customers of the Trojan.

Hackers are using human tragedy to gain access to vulnerable computers. Spammers are exploiting the public interest in the European storm to spread a computer virus that sends out junk email. The virus is being called the "Storm Worm" and has infected at least 10,000 PCs worldwide.

Antivirus technology is a crock. It fails to prevent computers from getting infected with viruses, and this failure contributes to many other security woes that plague the world's computers.

Virus programmers seem to know no limits when it comes to creative ways of making the Internet unsafe. Rootkits, originally programmes designed to help computer administrators, are the current bugbear for security firms trying to prevent them from sneaking worms, trojans, and viruses past anti-virus programs.

There is no stock recipe for detecting malware. Virus authors work hard to stay ahead of their pursuers. To close that gap, most anti-virus programmes perform what are known as heuristic scans to look for general virus behaviour patterns.

The number of personal computer users' reports to the Japanese arm of Trend Micro Inc of viruses intruding into their computers more than doubled in 2006 to 91,901 cases from 45,208 the year before, the vaccine software maker said Thursday.

The tendency of perpetrators to write malignant programs with the aim of stealing money or obtaining crucial information like passwords instead of merely perpetrating offenses for pleasure has become more pronounced, it said.

Keeping with their practice of tailoring malware-toting email for current events, malicious users are mass mailing what they claim is a rarely-seen video of the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Researchers at F-Secure have found three Hussein-related malware embedded in the emails, named video_sadan.exe, saddam.morto.scr and sadan.exe. The three files are actually the viruses W32/Banload.BSW, W32/Banload.BSX and Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Delf.ACC, according to the Helsinki-based anti-virus firm.

A rootkit-cloaked worm is being heavily spammed to users as an attachment to "Happy New Year!" messages, a security researcher warned Friday.

Malware authors are using Skype to help spread a pair of Trojan packages.

Hackers have released a worm that attacks Skype, the voice over IP (VoIP) application, security experts warn.

Cyber criminals are spreading the worm through messages via Skype Chat, the instant messaging feature in the telephony product. The message entices recipients to download and run a sp.exe file.

Once executed the file installs spyware onto the user's computer, which hackers can use to steal passwords, credit card details and other sensitive personal information.

Malware makers are starting to take advantage of the number of users searching for cracks for the pirated copies of Vista floating around.

A new download has started circulating around the crack boards called "Windows Vista All Versions Activation 21.11.06". It purports to be an activation crack for any version of Vista.

However, the file is actually a trojan-carrier which will install Trojan-PSW.Win32.LdPinch.aze onto your PC.