CyberDefender has issued an alert to surfer considering any last minute searches on the web for Halloween costume purchases. It has identified a dangerous Anti-Virus/Trojan downloader presently infecting searches for Halloween costumes. Upon visiting the malware site, the fake antivirus installer hijacks the user’s web browser and initiates a malicious process that could infect home PCs.

Cybercriminals often focus on subjects presently popular to search on Internet. Users querying the topics click on infected links which result with their internet browser hijacked and malware and adware downloaded instantly.

“Popular Search terms have always been a target for cyber criminals,” says Achal Khetarpal, Director, CyberDefender Research Labs.

How Spyware in “drive by download” works?

A person simply click on the website link in search results and instantly get pop-ups. You close the web pages however weird errors pop-ups again. You think that nothing dangerous may have come out of it, you merely “drove by” the site. You did not install anything at all. However your pc had a software program flaw that allow the website install spyware without having your authorization. You did not get any warning since it was a flaw in the programming of the web browser. You now have spyware and adware resident in your system. What you key in web forms, login pages, chat as well as just what websites you visited might all be delivered to the hacker’s website.

Internet user should always make sure their pc is protected by active and updated antivirus software before even going online.

What are the top ways that people can get viruses on their computers?

Emails – All of those inspirational or chain letter emails seem tempting and friendly, however, they are also one of the highest at risk for computer viruses to be embedded within them. It is in your best interest to forget about how much money you may get for forwarding it to everyone on your list, as instead of earning money, you may just find yourself spending it to purchase a new computer, or to fix your now broken one because of that inspirational chain letter.

Executable Files – Games, software, programs that promise that if you use them you will never get another virus again. All of these should be considered malicious until you can prove they are not. Running virus scanners or trojan cleaners on any program that requires execution is always the safest precaution that you can take.

Links – Clicking a link seems a very innocent and harmless thing to do. However, some links themselves can be embedding with coding that can cause your computer to pick up a virus without your knowledge. If you ever open a link that brings up a very quick dos box that just as quickly disappears. Do NOT reboot your computer until you have run every virus scanner and trojan remover that you have in your arsenal.

Pictures – Pictures from your spouse, children or grandchildren can be tempting to open right away. You know these people right? So why not trust that what they are sending is perfectly safe.

These suggestions will help not only you prevent you from getting a virus, but also for everyone who may be on your contact list.

A worm is a small piece of software that will use a computers networks and securities to replicate itself. The worm will scan the network for more machines that may have this specific security hole. If it finds one, it will copy itself to the new computer and using the security hole, will then replicate itself again and again in this manner.

Worms can work in many ways and one of the most common ways is through emails. They can attach themselves to your contact list and then send emails out to everyone on your list. This is an ingenious way to get the worm spread around since most people see no harm in opening an email that originates from someone they know and trust.

Computer Worms Detection

Over the years I have found a foolproof way to discover whether a worm has attached itself to my contact list. Create a contact named AAAAA, five A’s should be plenty. List AAAAA’s email address as your own. This way if a worm attaches itself to your computer and sends out a worm to all of your contacts, you will be the first one to get it. Should you ever open your email and find an email from AAAAA in there, you will know that a worm has attached itself and can then send out another email warning your contacts to avoid emails from your address until you have corrected the problem.

So what exactly is a trojan horse? A giant wooden horse made to fill with warriors who are set to jump out once they have breached the walls of an enemies city! No, not that kind of trojan horse.

A trojan horse is simply a computer program that claims to do one thing, but instead does damage when you execute it. These programs can come in any form. It could be a video game, an anti virus program, or even just a photo. They are set up to initiate once you have double clicked them. Trojans can only cause harm if you have executed them. They have no way to replicate themselves automatically.

Some people will exclaim that they have gotten a trojan horse from someone! But the reality is that if you have a trojan on your computer, it is because you have opened a file that included the trojan.

What Can A Trojan Horse Do?

A trojan can do anything from allowing a hacker to control every aspect of your computer. They can move your mouse before your eyes, or open your rom right in front of you as if you had done it yourself. They can also completely erase your hard drive, or implant more malicious information onto your computer. If you computer contains sensitive materials, a trojan will be your worst nightmare as anything saved to your hard drive will become available to the hacker who is using the trojan horse.

The best way to avoid a trojan horse is the same as avoiding a virus. Never open anything that hasn’t been virus scanned first. But it is important to also remember that not all trojans can be found through a virus scanner. Be sure to download a trojan cleaner and occasionally run it on your computer to be sure of the safety of your files and programs.

By Spyware News (www.spywarenews.org) – Malware creators and third party trojan programs are not a new thing. Ever since the days of Sub7 and its ilk, novice hackers have already used freeware tools and programs that were created by other more experienced cyber criminals. But with the advent of the Trojan Creator named, Turkojan, a commercial malware creator, the cyber criminal world has entered a new era: Cybercrime as a business.

Turkojan allows even beginner malware programmers to create new, undetectable trojans or virus for different operating systems without them having to learn a new computer language or to deal with lengthy manuals and scripts. The malwares they can create are not simple TSR annoyances either, since Turkojan is powerful enough to create trojans that can provide real time screen viewing, keylogging, streaming of audio taken from the microphone, and streaming of webcam signals.

The Trojan creator Turkojan offers three different versions of its malware construction kit, with the gold edition – priced at $249 US dollars – going so far as to offer 24/7 customer support for six months as well as patches and updates in case virus scanners have started detecting and blocking the malwares they created using the Turkojan trojan creator.

There is currently no news yet as to what authorities can do to stop the software makers and its devastating effect on computers all over the world, since there has not been any publicized news on whether they have found the person responsible for Turkojan. This is something I will definitely keep my eye on. – www.spywarenews.org

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Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading their annoying products: fake MP3 files.

On Tuesday, security vendor McAfee reported that it’s seen a huge spike in fake MP3 files spreading on peer-to-peer networks. Although the files have names that make them look like audio recordings, they’re really Trojan horse programs that try to install a shoddy media player and adware on your computer, said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee.

“Once you run it, there is no content. You’re taken to this site to install this player which you don’t really need,” he said.

Fake file names include: preview-t-3545425-changing times earth wind .mp3 and t-3545425-just got lucky.mp3. Users are first asked to OK an end-user license agreement before the Trojan installs two programs, Mirar and NetNucleus, on their PCs.

Ironically, while the Mirar software tells users that it doesn’t display popups, NetNucleus does deliver popup ads, so users who do not realize that they are installing two programs might feel tricked, Schmugar said. “You have a Window telling you that there are no popups and right behind it is a popup.”

Although McAfee has seen some nasty software disguising itself as media files in the past, it has never seen anything on this scale, Schmugar said. Over the past 24 hours, nearly a third of the McAfee customers who reported data back to the security company have detected these files, he said.

In the past few days McAfee has spotted the files on more than 360,000 users’ desktops.

Tags: McAfee, Adware, Trojan

source:www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145567/trojan_adware_hiding_in_mp3s_mcafee_says.html