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Lycos Anti-Spam Screensaver Inspires Trojan
Even though it's been withdrawn, the Lycos anti-spam screensaver is not forgotten.
Rollie Hawk writes "And with this, the 'What's Good for the Goose...' award goes to all those people trying to install that notorious spam-attacking Lycos screen saver but ended up with a Trojan horse instead. This trojan is spreading via email with the subject line 'Be the first to fight spam with Lycos screen saver,' tucked in an innocent-looking file called 'Lycos screensaver to fight spam.zip.' According to F-Secure, this trojan contains keylogger elements but little more has been specified. The only question I have is how long until the 'I promise to clean that trojan disguised as a DDoSing Lycos screen saver.exe' virus gets released."
Well isn't that the basis of most trojans?
"I promise to clean your room, do your homework, give you neck rubs, check for typos, and build a perpetual motion machine!"
If they really wanted to, they could have tacked on a trojan that had absolutely nothing to do with the screensaver and call it that anyway.
I'm actually surprised the trojan doesn't DDoS Lycos.
+5, Truth
Of course, that doesn't make formal systems, immune systems, or anti-spam screen savers useless.
Behold the riant ape! Beware, his crooked thumbs!
I wonder though, just how many people are going to want to fight spam using an attachemnt that arrives in a spam email?
Fighting back with the same measure is not always the solution.
Fighting violence with violence doesn't work. Why should fighting spam with spam work any better?
Does it still count as news, to be told something that you KNEW was going to happen, has happened?
1) Don't take candy from strangers.
2) Don't open email attachments from strangers.
-Mom and Dad
How many of you didn't see this coming?
Shady programs attract shady characters and shady tactics.
Doesn't matter if its by a major corporation or John Q. Crackdealer.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Will everyone please use the proper terms for these objects? "Misnaming Viruses" would've been my choice for the peeve poll:
A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents.
A Trojan is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software.
A computer worm is self-replicating, but is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself.
So most of the so-called viruses that are out there are really Trojans - they claim to be one thing, but are actually something else. Once you delete the original(s), you're finished; they don't generally infect your other files to propagate, they just make several copies of themselves independent of your programs. Other than macro viruses, there are very few true viruses in the wild these days.
Does the "screen saver" work in Wine? I want the benefits of the trojan without the overhead of an antivirus program.
When the Windows user has file extension hiding turned on (Microsoft's default), the attachment yohavewon.txt.exe appears to them as youhavewon.txt. It doesn't take much for the malware writer to use the standard windows "text file" icon as the application's icon, and the social engineering attack is complete.
I will not believe that Microsoft takes security seriously until they they issue updates for all their operating systems to disable this misfeature permanently.
>> tucked in an innocent-looking file called
>>'Lycos screensaver to fight spam.zip.'
In other news, a man in Reseda, CA, was shocked to discover that he'd been fleeced by a fraudulent business who's innocent-looking byline was:
"US Grreen CarrRd L0ttery 2005"
Seriously -- doesn't this seem like further proof that the people writing these lame-ass virii are really only interested in duping the dumbest of the dumb? I mean, they could've given it the exact same name as the real executable and caught some *vaguely* savvy people... Why not?