Cisco Finds Backdoor Installed On 12 Million PCs (securityweek.com)

Reader wiredmikey writes: Security researchers at Cisco have come across a piece of software that installed backdoors on 12 million computers around the world. Researchers determined that the application, installed with administrator rights, was capable not only of downloading and installing other tools, such as a known scareware called System Healer, but also of harvesting personal information. The software, which exhibits adware and spyware capabilities, was developed by a French online advertising company called Tuto4PC. The "features" have led Cisco Talos to classify the Tuto4PC software as a "full backdoor capable of a multitude of undesirable functions on the victim machine." Tuto4PC said its network consisted of nearly 12 million PCs in 2014, which could explain why Cisco's systems detected the backdoor on 12 million devices. An analysis of a sample set revealed infections in the United States, Australia, Japan, Spain, the UK, France and New Zealand.Tuto4PC has received flak from many over the years, including French regulators.

Comments

Missing from the summary

[OzPeter]

From TFA

According to Tuto4PC’s website, the company offers hundreds of tutorials that users can access for free by installing a piece of software that displays ads.

So it seems you had to explicitly install it.

Re:Missing from the summary

[Mashiki]

The blog post gives some information on this, including the "no EULA" bit as well.

Flak?

[mwvdlee]

Tuto4PC has received flak from many over the years

Seriously, aren't we overreacting a bit? Flak? Couldn't we just have sued and sent them to prison? Flak is a bit much, isn't it. Flak really, really hurts and I fact that many people are giving them flak is just horrible. It's the stuff censorred in straight-to-video horror movies. It's unhuman, the sheer amount of flak they had to take. Even waterboarding would be preferable to flak.

Re:So how do we detect if we have it?

[greenfruitsalad]

i hate the way it's always reported. i.e. when there's a worm affecting linux systems, the article always makes that clear. when there's a trojan affecting osx, it says so too. but when shit hits windows, it's suddenly computers or PCs. why don't journalists start calling things what they are? WINDOWS viruses, WINDOWS rootkits, WINDOWS backdoors, etc. It's not PCs that are infected, it's PCs running WINDOWS that are infected in 99.99% of cases.

Flak

[tekrat]

I assume by "Flak"; the author of the summary has indicated that we are firing Explosive Anti-Aircraft shells at them. I expect nothing less.

Of course, were it my choice, I would have used a tactical nuke, but that's just me.