Viruses & Malware

Lost fans who are looking for answers on the Internet won't likely find any, but they could end up with a virus.

Computer security company PandaLabs says on its blog that the rogueware MySecurityEngine redirects a person's search for something like the Lost season finale - which takes place Sunday - to a fake website and a security alert pops up. Some might think the alert is from their computer, and if they click on the link, will end up with an infected computer.

The ThreatSeeker Network of Websense Security Labs is warning that the well-known website phpnuke.org is under hackers' control and is serving multiple exploits.

Explained the security researchers that PHP-Nuke at one time functioned as open-source software; however, currently it's used for commercial purposes. Yet it continues to be widely used while its chief online site makes useful resources available for end-users. Consequently, it's hardly astonishing that blackhat attackers are targeting it.

The website address of a local technology company was hijacked and anyone trying to access the site from a web search list would instead be hit by “rogueware.”

It is an attempt to trick users into installing an unauthorised program on their computers, which could be anything from a virus to a program that digs out passwords to bank accounts or other online services.

Over the past few days, news outlets have been emulating those bogus virus warnings we regularly receive from well-meaning friends. Here's the short answer: Khobe isn't a problem. You know the kind of message, well-meaning (but technically illiterate) friends pass on warnings that including things like (and I paraphrase, with no reflection on any companies named in the emails):

" says it is the worst virus they've ever seen and currently no anti-virus software can detect it. Please don't open the file called I-am-Not-a-Virus.exe." Or some such malarkey!

A job-search related malware spam has been uncovered by the researchers of Websense Security Labs. The spam targets the inboxes of HR executives and infects their computers.

The spam asks the receiver to review a CV without mentioning anything about the position applied for. The spam also contains some attachments that are disguised as picture files. According to the researchers of Websense, over 230,000 samples have been found so far, and the number is increasing quickly.

The popularity of Apple's iPhone and initial enthusiastic demand for the iPad may attract greater attention from malware writers, but the Mac OS platform still pales in comparison as a target compared with its Windows counterpart due to low penetration, security experts say.

Trojans are the most common and dangerous malware in Kuwait accounting for over 45% of the total online threats according to a study by Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions. According to the study, 51% of online attacks in Kuwait this year will target Windows XP Professional with a further 17 per cent impacting Vista Home operating system.

Scammers are infecting computers with a Trojan horse program disguised as software that determines whether PCs are compatible with Windows 7.

The attack was first spotted by BitDefender on Sunday and is not yet widespread; the antivirus vendor is receiving reports of about three installs per hour from its users in the U.S. But because the scam is novel, it could end up infecting a lot of people, according to Catalin Cosoi, the head of BitDefender's Online Threats Lab. "This actually works because of the interest in Windows 7," he said.

A worm has begun spreading via Yahoo Instant Messenger that tricks people into downloading what they think is a photo from a friend but is instead malware that installs a backdoor Windows system and spreads to a victim's instant messenger contacts.

The worm arrives via a message from a contact with the word "photo" or "photos" and a smiley face icon, along with a link to a website resembling a Facebook page, MySpace page, or some other page where photos might reside.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the LoveBug worm, which was arguably the first malware infection that used social engineering techniques to propagate itself. Though simple in its approach, LoveBug was quite virulent in its attack methodology and, as reports of the time noted, hit several million users of the internet in its first 24 hours.

According to anti-virus reports of the time, the `virus rate' – which was normally averaging around 1.1 per 1000 emails – soared to an amazing 1 in 28 before tier 1 ISPs starting filtering the infected messages out on their own networks.