Viruses & Malware

A new malware posing as Microsoft Security Essentials is being distributed through a drive-by download as either hotfix. exe or mstsc. exe as these file names are not suspected by most users.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antimalware protection program from the security giant. The fake version was identified by security firm, F-Secure. The fake alert uses Microsoft Security Essentials brand, including the little blue fortified castle icon.

The success of a group of hackers in compromising the security of Apple's iPhone may set the stage for more malware for the popular handset, including rootkit-style remote monitoring tools and data stealing malware.

In early 2003, a new worm took the Internet by storm, infecting thousands of servers running Microsoft's SQL Server software every minute. The worm, which became known as SQL Slammer, eventually became the fastest-spreading worm ever and helped change the way Microsoft approached security and reshaped the way many researchers handled advisories and exploit code. This is the inside story of SQL Slammer, told by the researcher who found the bug and wrote the exploit code that was later taken by Slammer's authors and used as part of the worm.

Malware authors have released a new version of the Zeus crimeware, security researchers reported.

The latest version of Zeus, which Trusteer is calling 2.1, has improved the Trojan's business logic as well as its ability to avoid detection by anti-virus. The myriad of enhancements run the gamut from a 1024-bit RSA public key (which will probably be used for one-way encryption of data and authenticating the command and control server to Zeus clients) to URL matching based on a full implementation of the Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) library.

Ian Cochrane an Marketing Manager of Trend Micro Middle East, while speaking at Radisson Blu on 6th Oct in the IT Security Roadshow organized by IDC (International Data Corporation). 2010 stated that a latest research has found 99,000 infected personal systems in Kuwait in August 2010. However, considering its limitations, the overall estimate crossed almost a million's quarter, as per the news by gulfnews.com on October 10, 2010.

The US website for anti-virus provider Kaspersky was caught pushing malware to its users for three and a half hours on Sunday after it was compromised by criminal hackers.

The attack first came to light on three separate user forums frequented by Kaspersky users. According to some of the posts, Kaspersky officials initially denied any compromise took place.

Stuxnet has been a major topic of conversation among Internet security and malware researchers, and for good reason. This new form of malware is designed to attack a physical entity, such as a power plant or nuclear reactor and cause it to destroy itself. And if that wasn’t alarming enough, this form of malware can be tailored to target a specific system for customized destruction.

Computer and security experts are completely dumbfounded because they have no idea who designed the worm or what it’s supposed to destroy.

AMID growing speculation about a possible Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear facilities, evidence has emerged to suggest the two countries are on the brink of a different kind of war: one fought not with aircraft, tanks and soldiers but with cybermissiles and logic bombs.

For decades, the possibility of a cyberwar has fascinated experts. After land, sea and air engagements, battles in cyberspace could require the rewriting of military doctrines for an era in which a country could be brought to its knees by a few strokes of a laptop. That moment appears to have arrived.

More than 250,000 computers were infected with malware in Kuwait in one month, a marketing expert said. A study has uncovered 99,000 infected PCs in Kuwait in August, but given its limitations, the total estimate goes beyond a quarter of a million, said Ian Cochrane, Marketing Manager, Trend Micro Middle East.

Compared with last summer’s busted Russian spy ring, which was mocked for using buggy software and not-so-secret wireless networks, the spooks presumably behind the ambitious and meticulously crafted Stuxnet computer worm appear to have restored some professional credibility to the field.