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Viruses & Malware

600,000 Macs infected with Flashback Trojan and counting

posted onApril 6, 2012
by l33tdawg

A Russian security firm says it's found an alarming 600,000 OS X machines infected with the Flashback trojan. 

The firm, called Dr Web, first said that it had found half a million infected computers but later upped the number in a tweeted message, where it added that some of the bots are in Cupertino. 

Zeus still operational as domains live on

posted onApril 5, 2012
by l33tdawg

Three command-and-control (C&C) servers, which are feeding instructions to computers infected with the Zeus trojan, still are operational despite a Microsoft-led effort to disable the botnet, according to researchers at security firm FireEye.

Late last month, US Marshals led the raid on two hosting locations in the US, where they confiscated C&C servers and took down two key IP addresses in the process. In addition, as a result of the seizure, Microsoft assumed control of some 800 domains involved with the servers, a process known as sinkholing.

Alien Vault finds hackers targeting security hole in MS Office for Mac

posted onMarch 30, 2012
by l33tdawg

Researchers have found a new attack that employs two separate pieces of malware, a malicious Word document and some techniques for maintaining persistence on compromised machines, and the campaign is specifically targeted at Mac users. The attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability in the way that Office for Mac handles certain Word files, according to researchers at AlienVault, who discovered and analyzed the attacks.

Avira offers free OS X virus scanner and Android data security tool

posted onMarch 27, 2012
by l33tdawg

Avira has released two free security tools - Avira Free Mac Security - offering virus and malware protection to Mac OS X users and Avira Free Android Security.

Their Android tool is not a virus scanner but rather aims to help secure the data on your mobile device and also enable tracking and retrieval should it go missing. Avira also offers an online account which you can use to track your phones location remotely and also set it into 'lockdown mode' in which the phone is restricted to calls to a fixed number and to emergency services only. 

New Chrome extension malware hijacks Facebook profiles

posted onMarch 26, 2012
by l33tdawg

Kaspersky Lab researchers have found a criminal gang playing cat and mouse with Google by releasing several variations of its malware laden Chrome extensions, hosting them on the official Google Web store.

The malware pretends to be a Flash Player installer but instead downloads a trojan which writes messages a victim's Facebook profile and automatically likes certain pages. The researchers say that variations of the attacks have been found, however, it has so far largely been confined to Brazil and other Portuguese speaking nations. 

Researcher believes computer viruses could cross into biological realm

posted onMarch 20, 2012
by l33tdawg

A senior manager at Fortinet's threat research and response centre, Guillaume Lovet, thinks that hackers could create malicious software that crosses the line from technology to biology - crafting viruses that spread dangerous epidemics.

“We came to wonder if there can be some kind of convergence between human viruses and computer viruses,” Lovet said. “It may sound like a scenario for a bad Hollywood movie, but it is not such a stupid question.”

Duqu written using old school object oriented C

posted onMarch 20, 2012
by l33tdawg

When Kaspersky Labs analysed the Duqu Trojan early last month, they were stumped by a block of code that appeared to be previously unseen programming language. It seems now that the language was not new, but rather an old one. A custom object oriented C framework compiled with MSVC 2008 including options to minimise size and expand only when activated in line.

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