Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

- General Discussion (https://thetfp.com/tfp/general-discussion/)

- - Virus Info (https://thetfp.com/tfp/general-discussion/100543-virus-info.html)

read this and pass it on to all yer friends... and enemies too...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...il-virus_x.htm

target files are:

DMP - Oracle files
DOC - Word document
MDB - Microsoft Access
MDE - Microsoft Access/Office
PDF - Adobe Acrobat
PPS - PowerPoint slideshow
PPT - PowerPoint
PSD - Photoshop
RAR - Compressed archive
XLS - Excel spreadsheet
ZIP - Compressed file

for the clicking impaired

Quote:

E-mail worm bent only on destruction
By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
SEATTLE — A fast-spreading e-mail worm is raising alarms because its sole purpose is to obliterate the everyday working documents widely used by consumers, students and businesses.
The Kama Sutra worm — also referred to as Nyxem.E and Grew.A — is unnerving because, unlike other e-mail worms, it appears to be detached from any profit motive.

It is designed to destroy all Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint documents and Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop files on all hard drives connected to an infected PC.

"The amazing part is that there appears to be a lack of any motive behind this except destruction," says David Mayer, researcher at e-mail security firm IronPort Systems.

The worm appears in e-mail in-boxes with subject lines such as "hot movie," "A Great Video" or "Crazy illegal Sex!" enticing the recipient to click on an attachment. One variation makes reference to the ancient Sanskrit book on sexual positions.

By clicking on the attachment, the victim launches a program that disables anti-virus protection. The infected PC then begins to send copies of similarly tainted e-mail to every e-mail address on the victim's hard drive.

But while most e-mail worms also plant a back door to give an intruder control of the PC, or a program to steal log-ons and passwords, this worm's sole purpose is destruction. It implants a program to erase common work files on the third day of the month, hitting even external data-storage devices connected to the infected PC.

IDefense, a VeriSign company, confirmed the deletion program works. More than 500,000 PCs are believed to have been infected since it first appeared on Jan. 16. That's a modest infection rate, but victims face grim consequences. On Friday — Feb. 3 — any infected machines will lose all Microsoft documents and Adobe files.

Because big corporations have tighter e-mail defenses, small businesses and consumers are being harder hit, security experts say. But big companies aren't immune. The worm is designed to inject file-deletion instructions onto corporate servers. It does so via systems that share data with employees logging on to corporate systems from remote locations. "The worm can spread quite well once it finds its way beyond corporate firewalls," says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure.

Victims can tell they've been infected if they clicked on an e-mail attachment and had their keyboard and mouse freeze up, forcing them to reboot, says Ken Dunham at iDefense.

Disinfection requires reinstalling an anti-virus program updated to protect against this worm, then scanning to make sure it has been purged.

Security experts say the worm's author appears to be a throwback to when viruses were written for bragging rights or to make a statement. "It's about proving the virus community can't be stopped by anti-virus companies," says John Pironti, banking security consultant at Unisys.

Hanxter, thanks for the heads-up, it's appreciated!

(don't read ahead if you hate mac evangelists)

What is this I read? "Connected to an infected PC?"

So I take it us Mac folks are immune, as always, eh?

Just another reason to switch folks. I think there's only 11 or so viruses for Macintosh, compared to the 1000's for Windows.

I don't know about you, but I like keeping my files, thank you very much.

Don't bet on it. They even have a couple of new ones for the Linex systems. Google ROOT KIT. it will scare the hell out of you---I just took 3 of them out of my puter...it will really put it down on its knees..they infect the hidden system files. VG

Quote:

Originally Posted by sadistikdreams

That's probably only because less than three out of every hundred desktop computer owners has a mac. Why would a hacker even bother with a mac?

Actually, now that I think of it, sorry for kinda trying to make this into a Mac vs PC thread.

It's about the virus, not the computer.

Although I'm still surprised that people are still getting viruses, what with the warnings, and anti virus software, and the anti spyware stuff.
Speaking of which, how's everybody doing with all that spyware? Is it still as big a problem as it was a few years ago?

To me a virus is the darwin of computers.

If you get one, you deserved it probably.

Especially those email ones... *shakes head*

^ got one a few years ago. The damned thing disabled my virus protection (which was up to date) I actually saw the damned thing happen. I got an email from a prospect and all of a sudden I could tell I was creating internet activity, it was emailing everyone in my address book. I unplugged the connection immediately. Took a while to get it cleaned off, plus I emailed everyone to warn them not to open a specific email but it was probably too late. Shortly after that the anitvirus companies changed their software to keep that from happening.

I remember that virus... I used to work for Symantec doing virus removal, and that particular virus was quite the embarrassment. Simply keeping your virus definitions up to date will protect 99.9% of viruses, but every now and then, the definition folks don't catch it in time and a virus will slip through that disables auto-protect, deletes the Symantec files, or other similarly embarrassing things for AntiVirus companies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sadistikdreams

Just another reason to switch folks. I think there's only 11 or so viruses for Macintosh, compared to the 1000's for Windows.

If you really like it that way, then you should probably hush up. After all, you don't want too many people switching over, right? :)

Oh I forgot to add in my last post,

Everyone just having a virus scanner is not nearly enough!

A software or hardware firewall is in my opinion more important then any virus scanner out there. These things block incomming and outgoing data by every port on your PC and most you can easily configure by allowing and denying which programs you want doing such things.

if you get it you might wanna check this out...

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/nyxem_e.shtml