Viruses & Malware

The car accident involving golfer Tiger Woods has led to Google trends being dominated by the event. Hon Lau, senior security response manager at Symantec, claimed that from an IT security point of view, this is just another fruit ripe for the picking as far as malware writers are concerned.

“So it comes as no surprise that the creators of rogue anti-virus or misleading application software have already jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to poison web search engine results to take advantage of this spike in web search activity,” said Lau.

JB Hi-Fi's website was redirecting customers to malicious web pages over the weekend in a cyber attack that appears to have affected several other Australian websites in the lead-up to Christmas.

The exact details of the attack are not yet clear as the retailer has refused to comment but users first started reporting problems on Friday night.

Hackers could evade most existing antivirus protection by hiding malicious code within ordinary text, according to security researchers.

One of the most common ways of hijacking other people's computers is to use "code-injection" attacks, in which malicious computer code is delivered to and then run on victims' machines. Current security measures work on the assumption that the code used has a different structure to plain text such as English prose.

Hackers have built a virus that attacks Apple Inc’s iPhone by secretly taking control of the devices via their internet connections, security experts said.

The virus has been detected in the Netherlands and can only attack iPhones whose users have disabled some pre-installed security features, according to analysts monitoring the progress of the virus.

A PARTICULARLY NASTY computer virus has been discovered in China and the government there is warning that it could spread fast.

Although details of the Worm_Piloyd.B are fairly sketchy at the moment, it is unusual to get a virus warning from China before the rest of the world has caught it.

A Dutch internet service provider has identified a worm that installs a backdoor on jailbroken iPhones and makes them part of a botnet.

The worm, according to XS4ALL, targets jailbroken iPhones whose owners have carelessly failed to change the default password. In addition to connecting to a Lithuanian master command channel, it also changes the root password for the device, making it harder for owners trying to regain control. Infected iPhones are also tagged with a unique ID number.

A report issued yesterday by computer security firm Symantec says that hackers are undoubtedly reworking their malicious software to target Windows 7 as more users switch to the latest version of Microsoft's flagship OS.

The report lists an "unlucky 13" online security trends and tips, which was reprinted at Internet News. Entry number five on the list says the more widespread Windows 7 becomes, the more attractive it will be to cyber criminals. The report notes that Microsoft has already had to patch several critical security flaws in the OS.

Viruses and malware are words not normally linked to video games, that is until you talk to Michael Helander, VP of Sales and Marketing at Lavasoft. His software company has developed a new product, Ad-Aware Game Edition, that's designed to protect online gamers from viruses, a problem that's "increased over 600% in the last year," according to their website.

According to a recent research undertaken by Internet security firm Panda Security, it has been learnt that hackers developed thousands of websites that ranked high in search engines, in order to infect the systems of users who clicked on them. The firm further said that the connection between this online hoax and various events on the social calendar is increasing.

Security vendor Sophos has warned that the website of Harry Ramsden, the UK fish and chip chain, has been hacked and is hosting a piece of malicious script.

Graham Cluely, senior technology consultant at Sophos told eWEEK Europe that Harry Ramsden's website has been carrying the code for several days now. Cluely said the malicious script on the site, in turn drags down another piece of malicious code, from a German website. “This often happens where a tiny bit of script is inserted into a website, which then drags down further malicious script that does more damage,” said Cluely.