By Jack M. Germain
TechNewsWorld
07/10/07 4:00 AM PT

A bot is a computer whose operation has been secretly hijacked by malware. The infected computer, which is often referred to as a "zombie," has a Trojan program which directs the computer to connect to a remote location to download additional instructions. A group of hijacked zombie computers forms a botnet.

In the second half of last year, more than six million computers were taken over by infectious programs known as "botnets." The number represents an increase of 29 percent when compared with the first half of the year, according to security firm Symantec's (Nasdaq: SYMC) Latest News about Symantec latest Internet Security Threat Report.

Posted by StJohn (singin) Murray in Virus & AntiVirus News at 09:00

Eset, the leader in proactive threat protection, today announced that its NOD32 Antivirus software was the only antivirus solution awarded the Advanced+ Certification in the May 2007 Anti-Virus Comparative No. 14 test, conducted by testing organization AV-Comparatives.

The Advanced+ Certification is granted to antivirus products that demonstrate leading proactive detection capabilities while delivering minimal false positives.

Posted by StJohn (singin) Murray in NOD32 News at 08:51

Celebration card emails carry links to malware.

A further wave of greetings-card spam has been widely seeded, in the wake of considerable Storm Worm activity in the last week, with subject lines focusing on Independence Day celebrations under way today in the US.

The wave of spams mostly contain web links to JavaScript downloaders, which in turn pull down the main trojan code. Subject lines used have included '4th of July Party', 'Happy Independence Day' and numerous variations on this theme.

Original: Virus Bulletin

NOD32 USA Comment: Another "Social Engineering" trick.

Posted by StJohn (singin) Murray in Virus & AntiVirus News at 08:48

The group behind last week's Fourth of July spams are thought to be behind another campaign this week, with messages claiming to warn of malware infections detected on the recipient's system, and a trojan waiting to be downloaded if a link to an alleged patch is clicked.

The spams use subject lines like 'Virus detected' or 'trojan alert', and suggest that malware is behind some 'suspicious activity' which has been spotted on the system by an unspecified 'robot'. Links marked 'install this patch' lead to web pages, via specific IP addresses rather than DNS names, which carry exploits attempting to infect vulnerable systems.

Original: Virus Bulletin

Posted by StJohn (singin) Murray in Virus & AntiVirus News at 08:45