Computer viruses in June
Just as so many other areas of everyday life, June's information security arena was dominated by the FIFA World Cup. Cybercriminals did their best to cash in on the interest in the event. Meanwhile, rogue antivirus applications and botnet-related malicious programs continued their attack on Hungarian internet surfers, VirusBuster's stats reveal.
VirusBuster, the Hungary-based specialist of IT security continuously monitors virus occurrence and activity. Data from VirusBuster's mail protection systems -- in-house and externally deployed alike -- is collected and processed. VirusBuster uses the results to generate monthly statistics of the most frequent infections. These monthly virus toplists are published on the company's website as well (http://www.virusbuster.hu/en/viruslab/virus-toplist).
"Like in previous months, Hungary's malware landscape in June was mostly colored by botnet-related malicious programs (e.g. Backdoor.Nepoe.IF) and rogue antivirus attacks (including Trojan.Wigon.AE)", commented the latest stats Gábor Szappanos, the head of VirusBuster's virus lab. "But last month got a special touch from the FIFA world cup. As it could be expected, malcreants tried to take advantage of the global interest in the event. Our experts detected an enormous wave of spam messages, which used fake FIFA-related news to entice users into opening some kind of attachment. In most cases, the attached file contained malware".
Though they do not figure on June's toplist, last month again featured a large number of messages carrying JavaScript download malware, distributing both spam and trojans.
Trojans are malicious programs, which got their name from the legendary wooden horse built by the Greeks to defeat Troy: They pretend to serve users, but in fact they are designed to cheat their victims. Many trojans set off (fake) alarm bells warning the user of a virus infection, and then download a rogue antivirus application. The downloaded program promises to clean the machine, but, in reality, either does nothing (the better option), or starts some malicious activity. The user is often charged for such a download, so these trojans are, in fact, tools for fraud. They mostly come in e-mail attachments. Spammers disguise them as some useful file, such as an order confirmation. Opening the attachment, however, launches the infection mechanism.
Botnets (short for robot networks) are networks of unknowing victim PCs (called zombies) controlled by hackers. Users should get rid of botnet malware as soon as possible, since otherwise they may become accomplices in the cybercriminals' activities, warned Gábor Szappanos.
