Slashdot Mirror
New Malware Overwrites Software Updaters
itwbennett writes "Researchers at Bach Khoa Internetwork Security (BKIS), a Vietnamese security company, have found a new type of malware that 'masks itself as an updater for Adobe Systems' products and other software such as Java,' wrote BKIS analyst Nguyen Cong Cuong in a post on the company's blog. BKIS showed screenshots of a variant of the malware that imitates Adobe Reader version 9 and overwrites the AdobeUpdater.exe, which regularly checks in with Adobe to see if a new version of the software is available."
I've always filed the original forms of both these aggressive updaters under malware anyway...
Everybody I know would click through that bad boy without a moment's hesitation.
On the one hand, it's malware, on the other hand it replaces software from Adobe.
I can't decide if it's an enhancement or not.
Malware that poses as an updater or installer for applications such as Adobe's Acrobat or Flash are nothing new, said Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor for Trend Micro.
If your copy of AdobeUpdater.exe runs reliably without unexplained crashing, you are probably running the malware version.
On the strength of this, looks like Java will be following it.
What difference will that make to my general new-fangled-interweb experience?
Enquiring minds need to know...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
about a month ago, while going through the motions of updating java one day (clicking on all those security warnings, running the little interface), i thought: to hack a system, why not just copy this stupid little interface and have the user gleefully click through all of the little security warnings?
and now my fleeting paranoia is reality: you can't trust the updaters anymore
which makes this news from two days ago all the more prescient:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/03/24/189248
"Microsoft To Distribute Third-Party Patches"
furthermore, i despise the fact that just because i have quicktime and adobe and java installed, i have to always have these useless potentially bogus processes constantly running in the background doing nothing but waiting for their once monthly updates
it makes much better sense to have ALL software updated through one repository which, obviously, has to be microsoft
now microsoft is responsible for a secure update process, you don't have to worry about 9 different third party update mechanisms and have them constantly running, and finally, the big fat shiny nail in the coffin: you don't have to worry about this malware posing as an updater
a negative being: now you're pretty much sending microsoft a manifest of all of your installed software every time you get an update, but i see no way around that without this new hack entering the picture
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I used to sit there and think, "well, if I were a criminal, I'd do this, that and the other" (this that and the other being stuff like replacing updaters, faking out security software so it couldn't update, having multiple processes that "watchdogged" each other, yada yada). Nowadays, they're doing that shit and a whole lot more I never thought of.
Once your system is comprised, it's pretty much never a good idea to trust it until its been completely rebuilt from the ground up.
I'm currently in the middle of doing this for a friend. Whatever the heck he had was so dug in that I had him replace the hard drive, reinstall a fresh OS, patch up, reinstall apps from disk, and now I'm restoring his user data from the original drive (carefully with auto-run disabled) mounted from a USB enclosure.
The Digital Sorceress
I don't get it. If your system has had Administrator-owned files replaced with malicious versions, then your system has already been compromised! Game over. It's already too late.
Seeing as how 'a black fly in your chardonnay' is classified as 'pretty darn ironic' on the Morrisette Scale, I think her scale might be broken.
Now if that's not an excuse to get away from Adobe Reader, what is? This?
Not to 90% of users there isn't.
"Can I patent malware?"
Interesting question.
Maybe if all of this was patented, the person with the patents could then sue the snot out of all the people using this malware (the distributors of it) and ask for subpoenas to get them IDed so that they could be reported to the Feds for prosecution.
Wait. Bad idea. Putting something like that in the hands of Patent Trolls would be the end of Civilization as we know it...and we all know the additional costs of Malware would simply be passed on to the customer.
I completely neutered my copy of Adobe.
Just curious, instead of going to all that trouble, why wouldn't something like Foxit be simpler and easier with similar results?
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule