Filed under Malware, Viruses
Tagged as Malware, virus
A lot of people are aware of and are using online file-scanning services when they want to check if a suspicious file they got as an attachment or have found on their computer is actually some kind of malware.
Services like VirusTotal and Jotti allow these files to be submitted and check them against a myriad of commercial anti-virus software. If the results come back positive, they are shared with the manufacturers of all those software so that they can integrate adequate signatures in their products.
This is the reason why these services are not particularly attractive to malware-makers, and also the basis of the business plan for two relatively new file-scanning services: Av-check and Virtest.
They promise not to share the malware with the security companies whose anti-malware solutions they use to check the file with (AVAST, AVG, Avira, BitDefender, NOD32, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda, Sophos, Symantec and Trend Micro – among others). They also offer (or plan to offer) advanced methods of malware testing, such as testing against firewall and anti-spyware programs, and testing if they can be deployed in a virtualized environment.
These services are not keeping secret the fact that they mean to cater to malware authors – even the payment for those services can be carried out only by using virtual currencies preferred by those who are at home in these murky waters. The price? A bargain – one dollar per file, or $40 per month.
Source: Help Net Security
Filed under Viruses
Tagged as conficker, virus, worm
Internet service providers in Russia and Ukraine are home to some of the highest concentrations of customers whose machines are infected with the Conficker worm, new data suggests.
The report comes from the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks global botnet infections. Shadowserver tracks networks and nations most impacted by Conficker, a computer worm that has infected more than 7 million Microsoft Windows PCs since it first surfaced last November.
“Conficker has managed to infect, and maintain infections on more systems than any other malicious vector that has been seen before now,” Shadowserver stated on its Web site.
Shadowserver’s numbers indicate that the largest numbers of Conficker-infested PCs are in the East, more specifically China, India and Vietnam. For example, Chinanet, among the nation’s largest ISPs, has about 92 million routable Internet addresses, and roughly 950,000 — or about 1 percent of those addresses — appear to be sickened with Conficker.
More at: Security Fix
Filed under Viruses
Tagged as conficker, virus
Although Microsoft offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the identities of the cybercriminals behind Conficker, the worm continues to wreak havoc.
Since its inception, there have been numerous variants of the Conficker worm. Some variants use the exploitation of the Autorun function for removable drives and media (such as USB portable storage devices) to spread, while others take advantage of weak passwords to infiltrate networks. Another variant disables Microsoft Windows Update and blocks access to the majority of internet security vendor Web sites, which means users cannot access automatic or manual security updates.
Source: Help Net Security
Filed under Viruses
Tagged as Malware, virus
Claims have been made that ‘probably lots’ of malicious software will move to mobile devices.
Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG Technologies, claimed that viruses will migrate from the desktop to mobile devices ‘with great difficulty’, while malware will be more subtle than your typical virus.
Thompson said: “Viruses will not migrate from desktop to mobile because the two types of systems use fundamentally different operating systems that are simply not very compatible.
“Viruses have, and will continue, to make it onto mobile devices from time to time. Just last month, we had a couple of iPhone viruses (or, more correctly, worms), but a virus is really only a virus if it spreads, and the malicious software we’re going to see infecting mobile devices will be much more subtle than your typical virus.”
More at: SC Magazine UK
