Online Videos May Conduct Viruses

Technical Writing Geek writes "A report on threats via the Internet released by a Georgia Tech research center indicates online video may be a new avenue of attack. As the popularity of flash media continues to explode, hackers may be targeting embedded video players and more traditional video downloads with worms and virii. 'One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player. Another program silently installs spyware when a video file is opened. Attackers have also tried to spread fake video links via postings on YouTube ... Another soft spot involves social networking sites, blogs and wikis. These community-focused sites, which are driving the next generation of Web applications, are also becoming one of the juiciest targets for malicious hackers.'"

Comments

Is there a tool to remove wrappers?

[CranberryKing]

If for example a wmv file really contains and mpeg with some junk, is it enough to rename that whole file .mpeg or can you actually remove the junk. Something that does like a

$ cat wrapped.wmv | grep -v "http://spawnsomecrap.com/crap.html" > clean.mpeg ..except in a windows utility (or command?!.)?..

Re:Erm

[Crayon Kid]

Yeah, 1996 called, they want their virus distribution back.

And yet it's so damn sad to see that in 10 years the industry has still not learned to do things right.

Good security starts from the design phase. If it was not meant to be hacked it should not be hacked. Security holes are mainly the fault and the responsability of the people who designed those buggy pieces of software.

And yet we see the media always blaming "hackers". Sure, they're assholes who try to break and enter. But it's like a bank leaving its vault wide open and allowing anyone in, and then complaining that some people stole the money.

Why don't the programmers fix the security holes? Why do they allow the holes to exist in the first place? Nobody seems to ask those questions. I suppose "hackers are at it again" makes better headlines than "bad engineers are at it again".

Re:Plural of virus

[Anonymous Coward]

If it moves too fast, nobody will understand each other anymore. There is a difference between a language evolving and the current rules of a language being misapplied, even it it's a subtle one.