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New IM Worm Installs Own Web Browser

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the safety-first-everyone dept.

Aquafinality writes "A new IM worm discovered recently takes the novel step of installing its own web browser onto the victims PC. Ironically titled "The Safety Browser", its default settings actually make your PC less secure - switching on pop-ups, changing your home page and hijacking your desktop with a looped music track that plays every time you switch your computer on. It's clear people cannot resist clicking "yes" to anything they're presented with via IM - with this in mind, what on Earth can we do so stop the spread of garbage like the above? To put it another way, will reducing the amount of potential "suckers" out there dissuade the bad guys from coming up with ever-more elaborate ideas such as this latest scam? Or is IM safety a lost cause?"

2 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Why does EVERYTHING transfer files? by DaveLV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe we can't put the genie back into the bottle, but I think the real problem is that every Internet-enabled application these days is bastardized into a file transfer mechanism. IM programs should be for typing messages back and forth between two or more people. Why should IM even have the ability to transfer files?

  2. Unfortunately that does nothing for the clueless by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why? Because it becomes just another hoop to jump through. They don't consider the implications behind their action. The computer wants something, they give it what it wants to it'll shut up and let them get back to doing what they want to do.

    Admin passwords are useful for knowledgable users because if you do something that shouldn't require admiin, but asks for it you can step back and think why it's asking, and approve or deny it based on more information. However clueless users won't do that, they won't know what should and shouldn't need it, so they'll just blanketly issue the admin password.

    I've already witnessed this on other platforms (MacOS) that ask for admin. I was chatting with a guy while he was tinkering with his Mac, it popped up and asked for admin and he said "Huh, that shouldn't need admin"... as he was typing in his admin password (3 letters long). He even recognised that this might be a situation where it wasn't needed (it was actually, nothing harmful) but just gave it the password anyhow.

    So while I think the privledge escalation is Vista is a nice try, and certianly something I'll use personally, I think it will ultimately make no difference for normal users. They'll just make it go away whenever it pops up, and they'll do that by giving it the password it wants.