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worm posts

Filed under: Security, iPhone

Jailbroken iPhones in Australia getting Rickrolled by a worm

If the possibility of having your jailbroken iPod Touch or iPhone held ransom for 5 Euros wasn't enough of a scare to make you change your root password, maybe this will. Users on an Australian forum site are reporting a new attack - one that's no stranger to love.

You guessed it, the newest attack on jailbroken devices is a wallpaper Rickroll. Along with Rick Astley's devilishly handsome headshot, the image also includes the message "ikee is never gonna give you up."

It's actually a pretty tame attack. There are no reports in the forum of sounds being replaced with that all-to-familiar opening verse or repeated, mind-numbing video assaults.

At least one variation has also popped up. In addition to Astley, one user commented that his image had been changed to a New England Patriots logo.

The moral of the story?

If you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch, make sure you change the root password to something other than alpine so you can avoid the shenanigans.

Peripheral maker Razer ships trojan with software updates


If you are looking for a good reason to have antivirus software on your machine even though you 'don't do anything dodgy on the internet', then here it is!

Infected files drivers hosted at peripheral manufacturer Razer USA's website have been found by researchers at antivirus company Trend Micro after investigating reports received from concerned customers. Trend Micro confirmed that at least 8 drivers were infected, all of which were immediately removed by Razer upon discovery of the problem.

Although the Trojan in question, WORM.ASPXOR.AB, is classified at the highest possible severity level by threat analysis site ThreatExpert, it appears detection is quite difficult - Trend Micro state that in their testing 'only 7 out of 41 vendors offered generic detection'.

Razer certainly aren't the first company to ship infected software to their customers - Apple previously shipped a virus to customers on their iPod Video units, Seagate sold virus infected hard drives to customers and Creative also bundled that little extra something with a model of their MP3 players.

Razer currently have the above statement on their support site, which has been taken offline temporarily.

It is not known at this site whether the support site itself was hacked or lax internal policies allowed drivers to be packaged up with the trojan.

[Via: Trend Micro blog]

Filed under: Security, News, Blogging

Wordpress under attack, upgrade your blog now

Several sites are reporting that a major attack on Wordpress blogs started yesterday. The latest version of Wordpress, 2.8.4, is not vulnerable to this particular worm, so upgrading now could save you a lot of headaches. The worm creates a new, hidden administrator account on your blog, allowing whoever's behind this thing to access the guts of your blog, databases and all.

How do you know if your site has been affected? Lorelle on Wordpress offers two possible ways to find out:

There are strange additions to the pretty permalinks, such as example.com/category/post-title/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_REFERER%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%/. The keywords are "eval" and "base64_decode."

The second clue is that a "back door" was created by a "hidden" Administrator. Check your site users for "Administrator (2)" or a name you do not recognize.

Wordpress has acknowledged the attacks and encouraged users to upgrade their sites. Wordpress.com users aren't affected, as the whole system has already been updated to 2.8.4. If you've already been afflicted by the attack, start on the steps in Wordpress' FAQ.

[via Mashable]

Filed under: Internet, Security

1 million viruses, worms, and trojans on the loose

WormThe internet is a scary place. No, we're not talking about predators out to rob you or offer candy to your kids. We're talking about malware like viruses, worms, and trojans. According to security company Symantec, the amount of malware on the internet has reached an all-time high, with over 1 million malicious programs in circulation.

A surprsingly large number of those threats were developed in the last year, with 711,912 new pieces of malware coming out in 2007 compared with 125,243 in 2006.

The good news for Linux and OS X users is that most of these threats are targeted at computers running Windows. And the good news for Windows users is that most of these applications are variations of older threats, which means if your anti-virus software is up to date, you should be relatively safe.

Of course, Symantec puts reports like this out there in order to sell its own security software. But there are several excellent free anti-virus suites that will also help protect your computer from most threats.

[via BBC News]

Filed under: Security, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, OpenOffice.org

New OpenOffice bug affects Mac, Linux, as well as Windows

The forthcoming Aqua-native version of OpenOffice.
ZDNet UK is reporting that a just-discovered bug in OpenOffice can victimize versions of the software running on Mac and Linux in addition to Windows. The bug allows an attacker to use malformed TIFF images to run malicious code on the user's computer, ostensibly for the purpose of spreading the malicious code like a trojan. The official explanation of a heap overflow exploit can be found here. (Sounds likes when there's too much garbage in our can.)

OpenOffice's developers have not yet released a fix for the bug (update: the bug does not exist in version 2.3 or newer), but the firm that discovered it is advising OpenOffice users to "be careful" with attachments received from unknown sources. Good advice--whether you run OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, or Wordstar.

Filed under: Internet, Windows, VoIP

Skype worm spreading quickly

AlarmIf your'e a Skype user, be aware that a worm is spreading across the Skype network. The worm sends you a short chat message from a buddy's Skype client, asking you to open a malicious file, ostensibly sent to you by your buddy.

They're calling this trojan "Ramex" or "Skipi", and, at least as of last night, Symantec and F-Secure both contain updates for their anti-virus software to block it, so update your virus definitions. In the meantime, a little bit of vigilance goes a long way. So far, it appears Mac and Linux users aren't affected.

Filed under: Audio, Security

If fish eat worms, what do worms eat? Music

AVG Anti-VirusIf you're like most computer users, you probably have nearly 900 MP3s on your computer. If you're like most Download Squad readers you probably have closer to 9,000. Either way, they could all be gone in the blink of an eye.

A new worm called W32.Deletemusic is moving from computer to computer in search of tasty MP3 files to eat (ie: delete). That's pretty much all this worm does. It won't steal your credit card information or other personal data. It won't send spam to everyone on your contact list. But it could remove hundreds or even thousands of files that you've paid to download or rip from your own CD collection.

It's not clear whether the worm was written by some amateur hacker looking to see what he could accomplish or someone hoping to spread an anti-piracy message, you know by deleting legitimate music files. Because that'll show you.

Anyway, the worm can Windows machines running Windows 95 through Vista. The worm can be removed, but by the time you discover your computer's been infected it may be too late. So you might want to disable autorun on your PC until you've updated your virus definitions.

Filed under: Games, Security, E-mail

Mario ate too many mushrooms and became a virus

Mario virus (note: this is not an actual image of the virus, but an artist's rendition)Do we really need to tell you not to open e-mail attachments from unknown sources? No, I didn't think so. But while you've probably learned by now not to check click on messages promising images of naked starlets, you may have a soft spot in your heart for classic video games.

Well, there's a new worm going around with a slight twist. It promises to let you play a classic Super Mario Bros. game. And it does. But while you're playing, it's infecting your computer with malware.

Keep in mind, that you might get this e-mail from someone you do know, if their computer has been infected. The message usually reads "Hi There, Do You Like Mario Bross ? Test it, and you'll like it ;] !" The punctuation and grammar should be a dead giveaway. But if you don't score too well on security tests, let us be the first to tell you, there are plenty of other ways to play Super Mario.

[via Information Week]

Filed under: Business, Internet, Utilities, E-mail

Email worm infections declining

email worm rates decliningFishermen may love worms, but Email readers sure dread them. Could 2007 be the year that all email viruses just stop? Highly unlikely, but they have dropped off quite a bit this year.

A study just released by a security vendor found that mass emailing worms have been declining by 5% each month since the start of this year. Users have been educated and are more aware of the way to treat un- trusted email attachments which could explain for the steady rate of decline. Companies and customers also have better security implementations that fend off any potential attackers before it even hits the inbox.

Even though there has been such a steady decline in these worms, the infection still has the ability to spike from time to time as malware designers beef up their corruption plans, and security companies scurry to fight off aggressive tactics.

What tactics do you use to fight off malware and Email worm infection?

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Kids, Time-Wasters

3D Worm - Today's Time-Waster


Remember back in the day when the coolest feature on a cell phone was Snake? Today's time waster is that fantastic cell phone hit from ten years ago with a twist, this version is in 3-D. You play 3D Snake just like cell phone snake. The goal is to eat the apple and not run into a wall or yourself, the more you eat the longer you get and the harder the game becomes. If you thought it was addictive on your old Nokia wait till you see it now.

Filed under: Internet, News

Zotob writers jailed in Morocco

Zotob worm writers in jailFarid Essebar and Achraf Bahloul were jailed after a court ruling in Morocco for creating and spreading the Zotob worm last year which did a lot of damage in the United States. They were convicted of conspiracy, theft, using forged credit cards and illegal access to computer systems. Along with Nathan Peterson of iBackup.net, these guys are the latest we've heard on computer criminal rulings in the courts. All the people who were affected by the worm should know that justice has now been served. Everyone seems to think that virus-writers get off Scot-free. The truth is many times these guys are caught and justice is served. Isn't it good to know that after virus-writers cause so much destruction to countless people's computer systems, the IT headaches, and the recovery efforts needed, someone goes to jail? It doesn't seem like that is enough punishment sometimes. At least they won't be touching a computer anytime in the future. That's worth something I suppose.

[Via CNN.com]

Filed under: Security, Windows, Symantec

Security flaw puts Symantec AntiVirus users at risk

SymantecAccording to eEye Digital Security, the latest version of Symantec AntiVirus contains a security flaw that could be used to take control of the victim's PC "without any user action." eEye spokesperson Mike Puterbaugh describes the hole as "definitely wormable," i.e. malicious software could gain access to a machine, change or delete files at will, and spread itself to other machines. Symantec says they "are evaluating the issue now and, if necessary, will provide a prompt response and solution." Puterbaugh says no proof-of-concept code has been released, but warns that hackers may already know about the flaw.

Filed under: Security, News, Macintosh, Linux

Security vulnerabilities hit Linux and OS X

security holesMaybe this isn't enough to sound the bell across the land, but, as expected, there are still security vulnerabilities out there hitting the Linux and Mac folks. Last week there was that Mac Trojan, which was just a proof-of-concept (and not a good one at that). There's still a nasty Safari hole that Ars Technica is insisting is a major problem. I'm inclined to agree, shell scripts can do some damage. And then I see a worm for Linux that targets Mambo and PHP. The PHP fix has been out for a while (provided you update things regularly), but the Mambo hole is still there. Ah security, will it ever end? As long as people use computers, I think not. My first virus (and hence, exposure to the need for security) was on a Mac, what was yours?

Filed under: Security, Windows

Kama Sutra worm drops its nasty payload tomorrow

Plush
MicrobesIf you haven't done it in awhile, today might be a good day to update your virus definitions and do a virus scan. That's because tomorrow the Kama Sutra worm, which security people estimate has infected hundreds of thousands of Windows PCs, is scheduled to release its payload. What's the payload? It not only deletes, but overwrites, as many of your documents as it can find. It's the overwriting that has the professionals most concerned, because an overwritten file, unlike a file that was merely deleted, usually can't be recovered. The worm, which spreads by e-mail, entices users with porny subject lines, but unlike many newer worms requires user interaction--the victim actually has to open an attachment--in order to infect a system.

Filed under: Security

Santa worm is coming to town

Bad SantaA worm dubbed IM.GiftCom.All or just "Santa" is making the rounds on all three major IM networks, AIM, MSN, and Yahoo!. The Santa worm sends potential victims a link to a file which displays an image of Santa Claus while installing a rootkit in the background, which in turn uses the victim's buddy lists to spread. IM security firm IMlogic has rated the worm a "medium" threat, stating, " It's not a very happy delivery."

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

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