Trojan Horse Dupes Skype Users, Steals Personal Info
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Skype again warns users of its software that malicious code targeting its VoIP and instant messaging service is on the prowl, the second such recent alert.
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Virus hijacks PCs and uses them to send short message spam to mobile phones.
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(InfoWorld) - Skype users are under attack from aÂ new wormÂ that spreads through the peer-to-peer Internet phone application'sÂ chat feature. The attack begins when a user receives an instant message containing a link from someone in their contact list or an unknown Skype user, said Villu Arak, a Skype spokesman based in Tallinn, Estonia. There are several versions of the chat messages, which are "cleverly written" to fool users, Arak wrote on the Skype heartbeat blog. The link appears to contain a JPEG photo file, but if clicked causes the Windows run/save dialog box to appear, which asks whether the user wants to save or run a ".scr" file. The file is malicious software that can then access a user's PC via Skype's API (application programming interface). The malicious file has been named W32/Ramex.A. "Users whose computers are infected with this virus will send a chat message to other Skype users asking them to click on a web link that can infect" their computers, Arak wrote. To avoid trouble, users should not download the file. At least two security vendors, F-Secure and Kaspersky Lab, have updated their software to detect the worm, Arak wrote. Instant message programs are another way hackers can try to gain control over PCs. Access to one person's instant messenger or e-mail account can mean contact details for many others, allowing hackers to use malicious e-mails or instant messages to lure victims into downloading malicious software. Â
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An identity-stealing e-mail Trojan horse that disguises itself as the Lycos Europe antispam screensaver is being distributed around the Internet, an antivirus company has warned.
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Password-stealing Trojan horse may--or may not--be targeting popular VoIP feature.
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Scammers are sending out fake security bulletins that attempt to install malicious software on victim's PCs.
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A flashier offshoot of the Trojan horse that affects Symbian-based cell phones has been discovered.
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Sneaky program takes a different tack to capture people's passwords and potentially steal money.
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Skype has been forced to turn off a video-sharing feature in its software because it could be misused to launch a self-copying worm attack against Skype users, security researchers said Tuesday.A bug in the software, which was first reported last Thursday by security researcher Aviv Raff, stems from the way Skype uses an Internet Explorer component to render HTML.Skype&#39;s video-sharing feature allows users to share videos hosted on two sites -- Dailymotion.com and Metacafe.com -- while chatting with other Skype users.Last week Raff showed how attackers could exploit the bug to run unauthorized software on a Skype user&#39;s PC. But on Tuesday, the security researcher said the flaw was more serious than he&#39;d first thought. It can &quot;be triggered by simply visiting a Web site, or clicking on a link from your instant messaging application,&quot; he wrote in a blog posting, &quot;Which basically means that this vulnerability is now wormable.&quot;Skype appeared to have pulled the video feature from its client software on Tuesday as a result of the bug. Users who attempted to click on the &quot;videos&quot; button within a chat window were greeted with a message that the feature was unavailable &quot;because of some security concerns.&quot;&quot;Our brightest engineers are rattling their wrenches to make things all right and bring the beloved videos back. Soon,&quot; the message read. &quot;Sorry about this.&quot;Skpe representatives did not return calls seeking comment. Last week, Skype spokesman Villu Arak confirmed that there was a security problem for Skype 3.5 and 3.6 users who visited the Dailymotion.com Web site, but users were still able to share videos using Metacafe.com.On Tuesday, however, Skype pulled the video feature altogether after being informed of the new problem, Raff said.Because Metacafe had a cross-site scripting flaw, a common type of programming error, Raff was able to run JavaScript on Metacafe.com, which could then be used to run unauthorized software on the victim&#39;s computer. Attackers could then forward a link to the malicious Web page to all of the Skype contacts in the victim&#39;s computer, spreading the infection.For Raff&#39;s attack to work, an attacker would have to post a maliciously encoded video file to either of the Metacafe or Dailymotion Web sites. Metacafe said Tuesday that it&#39;s &quot;highly unlikely&quot; that this kind of malicious video would make it through the site&#39;s content-filtering process.In a statement, the company said it expects Metacafe videos to be available to Skype users as early as Wednesday morning.Raff said that because the attack could lead to a widespread worm outbreak, it would be better for Skype to fix the underlying problem before bringing Metacafe back online.Raff believes that Dailymotion was probably susceptible to this type of attack as well, although he was unable to confirm this after Skype cut off access to the Web site.The problem lies in the fact that Skype uses a Windows Internet Explorer component with inappropriate security settings, researchers say. Instead of processing pages it renders with the more secure &quot;Internet Zone&quot; security setting, Skype uses IE&#39;s &quot;Local Zone&quot; security setting, usually reserved for more trustworthy content.Until Skype engineers make some changes to their software, more of these problems will continue to pop up, Raff said.Another security researcher who has been studying the flaw agreed.&quot;If they keep their Skype client running in the Local Zone of IE, we will see more of these,&quot; said Petko Petkov of GNU Citizen via instant message. &quot;Before killing Metacafe, anyone who owns the server would have been able to own every Skype user on the planet.&quot;
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Early this morning, news broke across the Internet that a Trojan - a malicious type of software, typically a virus â-as being spread amongst Symbian cellphones.
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Video pwnd the radio star Skype said it has blocked a bug that created a means for hackers to attack vulnerable Windows PCs using malicious video files.â¦
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Blog: Feature designed to dial Web page phone numbers is subject to cross-site scripting attack.
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InfoWorld - A security company has identified a Trojan horse program that replaces Google text advertisements on Web pages with ads from another source, depriving Google of revenue and potentially causing problems for end users.
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A malicious Trojan disguised as a Microsoft update is being served up from a MySpace page for which the name and password appear to have been phished. The problem highlights the trouble to which criminal abuse of MySpace can lead.
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Yet another Trojan horse is luring the Internet with a need to infect Symbian based smart phones. SimWorks International, an anti-virus firm, issued an alert earlier this week informing the users of the Trojanâs existence.
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The &quot;Skulls&quot; Trojan, which bills itself as &quot;Extended Theme Manager&quot; by &quot;Tee-222,&quot; has been found on Symbian shareware download sites.
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More VoIP security woes Skype has patched a flaw involving its SkypeFind feature. But the security researcher who discovered the flaw said the VoIP platform remains exposed to cross-zone scripting vulnerabilities, like the latest SkypeFind bug and an earlier flaw involving movie files.â¦Learn &amp; Contribute, Live &amp; Online - The Register Debates Green Computing