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'StrongPity' Malware Infects Users Through Legitimate WinRAR and TrueCrypt Installers (neowin.net)

Posted by msmash on from the security-blues dept.

Kaspersky Labs has revealed a new strain of malware -- named 'StrongPity' which targets users looking for two popular applications - WinRaR and TrueCrypt. The malware contains components that not only has the ability to give attackers complete control on the victim's computer, but also steal disk contents and download other software that the cybercriminals need. From a Neowin report: To be able to gather victims, the attackers have built special fake websites that supposedly host the two programs. One instance that was discovered by the researchers is that the criminals transposed two letters in a domain name, in order to fool the potential victim into thinking that the program was a legitimate WinRAR installer website.

6 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Title smells like bullshit by truedfx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "through legitimate WinRAR and TrueCrypt installers"? By what logic are those installers legitimate?

  2. Legitimate by dejitaru · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it's malware infected, it's not legitimate.

  3. Actual source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nothing like an ad-infested news page with referral program links to the original source. Here is the actual article, with a sanitized URL:

    http://usa.kaspersky.com/about-us/press-center/press-releases/2016/Kaspersky_Lab_Reveals_Advanced_Persistent_Threat_StrongPity

  4. Why is this here? by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hasn't this been done 1000 times before? What's new here? Why is this newsworthy?

    1. Re:Why is this here? by green1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The headline stated something rare (legitimate installers of popular programs being infested by malware)

      Of course the headline was nothing to do with reality, the article, or even the summary, which is all about the every day occurrence of fake installers being used to try to trick people in to installing malware, which is not new at all.

  5. Re:Wait.. by NotAPK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    7-zip decompresses RAR files, and makes 7z (LMZA and LMZA2) files which are smaller, "better"* (support multi threaded compression/decompression and AES encryption) and is multi-platform and open source. Absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be your compression format of choice.