Sophos declares Netsky-P worst virus of 2004
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com December 8, 2004, 9:37 AM PT. Netsky-P tops the list of the worst virus outbreaks in 2004--a year marked with nearly a 52 percent increase in new viruses, according to a report
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roundup Free-roaming source code breeds new Netsky pest. Also: From IE to Opera, browsers are a likely prey.
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Least among equals Microsoft's Live OneCare placed last in a test on the effectiveness of anti-virus security packages by Austrian researchers.â¦
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On 20 December 2004, a fast-moving Internet worm called Santy began attacking Web servers using the popular Google search engine. The Santy worm exploits a security vulnerability in phpBB, an open-source bulletin
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A new Trojan horse that sends unauthorized spam to mobile phones via sms has been detected by anti-virus authority Sophos, marking a new trend in the convergence of viruses and mass-mail attacks.
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A warning was issued today about a âPeeping Tomâ computer virus which can hijack webcams and spy on users. The virus, or âwormâ as it is technically
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Antivirus firm Symantec is facing a denial-of-service attack on its Web site from the latest version of the MyDoom worm. Authors of MyDoom.
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Anti-virus experts at Sophos have advised that a new Internet worm is defacing web bulletin boards across the globe. The Santy worm exploits a vulnerability in a piece of software often used to provide discussion
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Sophos believes that the W32/Rbot-GR worm is evidence of a growing trend of more and more malware spying on innocent home computer owners and poorly-protected businesses.
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The worm, dubbed Santy, exploits a vulnerability in third-party web servers that use phpBB bulletin board software, a popular package used to create web forums, and has been propagating at a rapid pace, infecting some 38,000 sites in a matter of hours.
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Cupertino, we have a problem Symantec has updated its anti-virus definition files after a duff update falsely identified two open source packages as adware.â¦
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By Subashini Selvaratnam  SECURITY threats on networks are on the rise. To help arrest this problem, Sophos is launching two products that will enable IT departments to protect their network environment more effectively.
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A new variant of the Zafi virus attacks Google, Microsoft, and the Hungarian Prime Minister
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Security firm Sophos said that many home users&#39; computers are sending out spam because they have had their broadband internet connections exploited.
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LYNNFIELD, Mass., Nov. 1 - NetSky-P and Zafi-B were the top two viruses in circulation in October, security company Sophos says in its monthly top-10 viruses and hoaxes lists.
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(InfoWorld) - The notorious Mpack hacker toolkit is installing malware that carries out its chores -- including spewing spam -- from within the Windows kernel, making it extremely difficult for security software to detect it, Symantec said Thursday. The Trojan horse that Symantec has dubbed "Srizbi" is being dropped onto some PCs by the multi-exploit Mpack, a ready-to-use attack application that until recently has been selling for around $1,000. Responsibility for a large-scale attack launched from thousands of hijacked Web sites last month was pinned on Mpack, as was a follow-up campaign waged from compromised Internet porn sites. Although Mpack can force-feed any malicious code to a commandeered PC, Symantec researchers said Srizbi stands out. Rather than follow the current practice of hiding only some activities with rootkit-cloaking technologies, Srizbi goes completely undercover. The new Trojan, said Symantec, works without any user-mode payload and does everything from kernel mode, including its main task: sending spam. "When Trojans go to spam, they go out to user land," said Dave Cole, director of Symantec's security response team, referring to malware writers injecting their code into visible Windows processes to carry out spam-sending tasks. "Srizbi, though, is basically using kernel libraries [to send spam]," said Cole. "It's calling the kernel libraries it needs." A blog entry by Kaoru Hayashi, a senior security response engineer at Symantec, spelled out the technical details. "Srizbi seems to move a step forward by working totally in kernel mode without the need to inject anything into user mode," wrote Hayashi. "To manipulate the network connection directly in kernel mode, it attaches NDIS and TCP/IP drivers and gets all the Ndis* and Zw* functions that it needs. This technique also allows the Trojan to bypass firewall and sniffer tools, and to hide all its network activities." Translation: Only advanced security tools will detect Srizbi. It's also the first full-kernel malware spotted in the wild. "It's evolutionary, not revolutionary, but it's indicative of what we see in the threat landscape," Cole said. "And if your security software is relying only on [Windows'] APIs to detect malware, you won't be protected. You need something that uses modern, anti-rootkit techniques." Cole added other information to the Srizbi story, in particular his suspicion that its author is probably the same hacker who created Rustock, a dangerous polymorphic Trojan from 2006 that also relied on rootkit technology to avoid detection. "It appears to be from the same author," said Cole. "He's been quiet for a while, and everyone has been waiting for Rustock 2.0. Some thought he'd maybe went away, but [Srizbi] uses some of the same components as Rustock." Cole expects Srizbi to follow a similar trajectory. "The pattern with Rustock seemed to be to get something out there that might be sloppy at first, but to evolve it over time. It's reasonable to believe that [Srizbi] will do the same." According to Symantec's research, the new Trojan is sloppy. "Users may be able to detect the presence of this malicious code via a registry key that happens to not be hidden by the rootkit component," said an alert to Symantec's DeepSight customers. The registry key to look for, said Symantec, is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\RcpApi\\"MachineNum" = "[six random digits-six random digits-two random digits]" In other Mpack-related news, a third Symantec security researcher said today that he's spotted the toolkit selling for as little as $150, an 85 percent reduction from its previous $1,000 price tag. "Considering the toolkit is written in a script language, it is easy to redistribute and modify," said Eric Chien, a Symantec security response engineer. "The sellers likely didn't even need to buy it themselves, but rather probably found some of the multiple Web sites that did not employ standard Web site protections, allowing them to download the whole kit for free. "Talk about clearance sales." Mpack's wider "distribution" spells trouble not only for the hacker -- suspected to be Russian -- who created the multiple-strike attack kit, but for users, too. "Its usage is likely to grow," said Chien. "In addition, without a single author controlling the distribution of the toolkit, we also expect to see forks of the source code with additional exploits, bug fixes, and other feature enhancements."
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FRANKFURT, Germany  - A mass e-mail posing as a  plea for aid to help the victims of last month's Asian tsunami  disaster is actually a vehicle for spreading a computer virus,  Web security firm Sophos said Monday.