By Iain Thomson

Security experts today warned of a Linux network worm that exploits holes in the Mambo content management system and the PHP XML-RPC library.

Dubbed Mare.D, the worm leaves multiple backdoors on infected systems. Two of these are connectback shell backdoors that link to a remote host, while a third allows the malware's writer to access and control infected systems via IRC.

"The main component of the Mare.D worm is written in C and compiled with the GNU C compiler," said F-Secure researcher Gergely Erdelyi.

Posted by Spencer Cuffe in Virus & AntiVirus News at 08:53

By William Eazel

Over the last year, malware creation and distribution has been increasingly taken over by gangs of organized cyber criminals, undertaking highly targeted attacks for financial gain, new research has revealed.

According to PandaLabs' 2005 Annual Malware Report, the time in which malware creators were seeking notoriety and recognition for their creations has long since gone.

"Cyber-crooks, motivated by profit, have adapted well to the new environment - they are now looking to silent infections that allow them to operate without much noise being made in the media," explained Luis Corrons, director of PandaLabs. "This means potential victims do not have their guard up and are more susceptible to theft of money and all types of information."

This situation represents a new business model for malware, with an alliance of developers, distributors and companies making use of this infrastructure, the report warns. A clear example of this is the more than 10,000 unique variants of new bots ("robots," or

Posted by Spencer Cuffe in Virus & AntiVirus News at 08:51

By The Hosting News

Internet security and virus alert company, PandaLabs, is reporting a 240% increase in the number of new malware specimens detected in 2005. In all, over 46,000 new threats, including viruses, worms, Trojans, bots and other types of malware, were detected in 2005, compared to 13,000 threats detected in 2004.

Of the total figure, the number of bots represented 10,000 new detections in 2005. The number of new viruses, on the other hand, decreased dramatically, whereas the percentages of worms and Trojans detected were still significant.

Luis Corrons, Director of PandaLabs commented on the findings, ''2005 stands out for two reasons - the huge increase in the number of malware specimens and the lack of visible epidemics. The combination of these two factors leads us to think that the cybercrime world intends to use this situation as a smoke screen to keep us busy while they carry out lucrative activities, like designing custom designed malware or industrial espionage. Situations like that of November 2005, when 5 worms from the Sober family were released in a few hours with over 350 slight variations, clearly demonstrate this.''

Many of the detections were samples sent by computers with Panda Software's TruPrevent Technologies installed. These technologies proactively detect unknown malware by analyzing their behavior - even before it has been identified. PandaLabs currently detects around 300 new malware variants a day using these and integrated technologies. Therefore, by the end of this year, the number of new variants detected could exceed 100,000, which is more than the computer threats detected in the previous 20 years.

Posted by Spencer Cuffe in Virus & AntiVirus News at 08:46