Tag: worm
Kaspersky Lab warns against "Flame" cyber attacks
Security specialists Kaspersky Lab have today highlighted a new threat to PC users' security. A program known as Worm.Win32.Flame, or Flame for short, is causing havoc for PC users across the globe. It's a particularly nasty piece of work, with…
NASA rocked by "Here you have" email virus
Remember the scene from Independence Day when hacker Jeff Goldblum defeats the intergalactic alien army by uploading a computer virus onto their mothership? Well, it looks like the aliens have finally struck back, as US space agency NASA have come…
iPhone worm creator gets app designing job
Do you think Ashely Towns' worm-work is deserving of a job placement? Should he be given a second chance? Would you even trust any mogeneration apps, knowing he has worked on them?
Second worm hits jailbroken iPhones
It would appear that worms are like busses; it is ages before you see one, then two come along nearly at once. It was a little over a week ago that we reported on the annoying-though-mostly-harmless Rick-rolling worm. It's now…
Jailbroken iPhones get Rickrolled
The most infamous and infamously annoying prank in web 2.0 history is getting an unwanted new lease of life as the Rickrolling phenomenon hits the iPhone.
Twitter gets the 'all-clear' after a weekend of virus antics
In a metaphorical ‘get your own back’ situation, everyone’s favourite bird-themed microblogging website, Twitter, was assaulted by worms over Easter weekend. Four waves of assaults hit the site, with those infected spamming out a link to a Twitter clone called StalkDaily.
The creator of StalkDaily, 17-year-old American student Michael Mooney, has admitted he was responsible, saying:
“I really didn’t think it was going to get that much attention, but then I started to see all these stories about it and thought, ‘Oh, my God’.”
While the attack could have been considerably worse if it had been more malicious in intent, security experts said they were surprised it had even been possible on the site, as Facebook and MySpace saw similar assaults quite some time ago. Twitter has promised to conduct a ‘full review’ of what happened.
Old viruses take note of Conficker's successes
Despite Conficker’s relative no-shown on April 1st, its impact hasn’t gone unnoticed in the virus creators community. An updated version of Neeris – which dates from 2005 – is now doing the rounds exploiting the same flaw as last week’s media darling.
Security experts don’t think that the creators are related, just that Neeris has undergone a redesign after seeing Conficker’s success. As ever, if you’re fully patched up with the latest versions of Windows, then you’re probably safe. The quickest way to check, though, is visit an anti-virus site. Most viruses will stop you doing that.
(via eWeek)
Top ten things we wish the Conficker worm would do (but it won't)
On April 1st, the infamous Conficker worm will unveil the full extent of its power. The virus, which has squirrelled away inside something like 15 million PCs, will ‘activate’ by receiving instructions from a mysterious central server.
It could spam, begin DDOS attacks, or just access all your files for identity theft purposes. But those are boring. Let’s have a look at what else it could do. Click through to the full post to begin.
German virus attacking UK World of Warcraft and Counterstrike players – is this WWIII?
This morning I spoke with a French hacker-turned do-gooder, Jacques Erasmus, who uses his extraordinary knowledge over at online security company Prevx. According to Erasmus, a virus was created last Wednesday which is targeting gamers on World of Warcraft and Counterstrike.
Created in Germany, the worm is spread on MSN Messenger, where a spam message directing users to an infected site is sent out to a user’s complete contact list, in turn automatically sending itself to all of their contacts as well.
The worm then searches through the user’s hard drive, searching for log-in details to World of Warcraft and Counterstrike, as well as PayPal and Barclays Bank amongst others. The information is then uploaded to an FTP site, where the hackers can view all the details, as well as anyone else clever enough to gain entrance, such as Erasmus, who viewed hundreds of people’s details…
