A stressed e-mail from a friend once read: "A worm has just eaten my kid!"

Thankfully, the message was not referring to infanticidal earthworms, but rather to a type of computer virus, a "worm", that had just infected some files (known as KID files) on his computer.

And he may have had Fred Cohen to thank for the ensuing implosion of his computer hard-drive.

Mr Cohen released the very first computer virus in a controlled experiment in a class at the University of Southern California, 25 years ago today.

In 1983, in a class at the School of Engineering taught by the computer-programming guru Leonard Adleman, Mr Cohen wrote a program for a parasitic application that seized control of computer operations.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 09:18

Hackers seeking to exploit the global interest in Barack Obama’s sweeping election victory have bought their way to the top of the Google results page.

For most of this afternoon, searches involving the keyword Obama generated a sponsored link reading “Download Now” at the top of the results page. People who clicked on the link would reach a web page infected with malicious software.

Security experts confirmed that the site could compromise PC users’ security.

“The website is infected with a malicious i-frame,” Graham Cluley, the senior technology consultant at the online security company Sophos, said. “This code then downloads further malware onto your PC, including something called Mal/Pdfex-B.

“Ultimately this code is designed to compromise your computer and allow hackers to have remote control over your PC.”

Unlike early virus writers, who were motivated mainly by the desire for notoriety, today’s hackers work for profit.

Once they have gained access to a computer, they will search for potentially lucrative data such as banking passwords and credit card numbers. They may also use the network of PCs they control to launch co-ordinated attacks on web businesses that refuse to co-operate with extortion demands.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 10:56

November 5, 2008 (Computerworld) Hackers have seized on the results of the U.S. presidential election to launch a major malware campaign that tries to trick users into installing an update to Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash, but actually plants a Trojan horse on unprotected PCs, security experts warned today.

The malware blitz stems from spam messages touting Sen. Barack Obama's victory last night, and offers up a link to what is supposedly a site sporting election results. When users click on the link, however, they're shunted to a fake site that demands the user install an update to Adobe's Flash Player before viewing a video.

Rather than a Flash update, what's actually downloaded is a Trojan horse that compromises the PC then floods the machine with more malware, said Dan Hubbard, vice president of security research at Websense Inc. "This is very coordinated," said Hubbard of the Obama-themed attacks, "with evidence that they planned this, then waited for the election results."

According to Hubbard, the hackers registered 15 to 20 domains yesterday to host the malware and fake site. All the domains are on so-called "fast flux" servers, Hubbard added, referring to the practice in which criminals rapidly switch domains between multiple IP addresses. Identity thieves often use the fast-flux tactic as a way to stay ahead of the law and prevent their servers from being shut down.

Hubbard called the attacks "the largest malicious e-mail campaign going," adding that Websense had tracked 100,000 individual copies of the scam message so far today.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 14:54

Newsweek is reporting that the computer systems of the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain were compromised in a “sophisticated cyberattack” by an unknown “foreign entity.”

At Obama headquarters, what was originally believed to be a virus planted in a phishing attack turned out to something more ominous. After an investigation, the FBI and Secret Service issued a dire warning:

* You have a problem way bigger than what you understand,” an agent told Obama’s team. “You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system.”


[SEE: Obama looking for help thwarting Web site hackers ]

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 11:34