Bugs & Viruses Archive

Recently, the Linux version of UnrealIRCd was discovered to have had a Trojan worm its way into the source code. Even more embarrassing for the developers of Unreal is that the Trojan's been holding open the backdoor in the source code since November of 2009-- not very recently. And, of course, bloggers and press in general are taking the opportunity of another breach in Linux security to point out doomsday devices that don't really exist.

According to The Register, "Researchers say they've devised a way to bypass protections built in to dozens of the most popular desktop anti-virus products, including those offered by McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG, and BitDefender. The method, developed by software security researchers at matousec.com, works by exploiting the driver hooks the anti-virus programs bury deep inside the Windows operating system. In essence, it works by sending them a sample of benign code that passes their security checks and then, before it's executed, swaps it out with a malicious payload."

Via Ha.ckers.org, we get news of a cross-domain flaw using Flash or Silverlight content that allows the attacker to use the victim's browser as a proxy, including access to the user's session. Erlend Oftedal, the developer, explains how the system works and demonstrates the concept with a video. The flaw stems from developers lackadaisically allowing cross-domain requests from Flash across their whole domain (which obviously includes the user-account interactions); even Flickr and YouTube were culprits at one point.

Computers are taking on ever more important roles in our daily lives. They used to be simple tools to get simple things done - work-related, mostly, maybe a few simple games, and that was it. However, over time, they have become the central hubs for all sorts of data - including precious data. For his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage illustrated just how important our computer data has become.

A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details.

Adobe Flash. It's everywhere. Not all of us want it, but many are forced into submission simply because it's weaseled its way into a myriad of applied and common uses. This just makes all the worse the news that a vulnerability in Adobe Flash, Reader, and Acrobat applications is allowing malcontents to exploit computers with these products installed.

Finjan managed to research a trading network and botnet, where compromised PCs are bought and sold for profit. Their report shows "the operations of the Golden Cash network consisting of an entire trading platform of malware-infested PCs. The trading platform utilizes all necessary components (buyer side, seller side, attack toolkit, and distribution via 'partners'). This advanced trading platform marks a new milestone in the cybercrime evolution. By turning compromised PCs from a one-time source of profit into a digital asset that can be bought and sold again and again, cybercriminals are maximizing their illegal gains."

Reuters reports that Microsoft is getting ready to unveil a free antivirus service for computers to compete with the many retail antivirus offerings on the market. Microsoft first made plans for its free antivirus offering codenamed "Morro" in November of 2008. At the time, Microsoft said that the service would be launching in the second half of 2009. The exact launch date of the new free anti-virus service has yet to be announced, but Reuters reports that Microsoft will "soon" make a beta version of the free protection available for users. Investors in security software firms like McAfee and Symantec are worried that a free offering from Microsoft could potentially harm revenue for the companies.

We're well and deep into April 1 now, and if you were to believe some of the reports and hype on the internet, we should've all been paying in bottle caps right about now. As any sane person already saw coming, the Windows worm Conficker didn't do anything. It just kind of sat there, patiently mocking all those who did not update their machines properly.

"Judgment day has arrived for owners of 30GB (and only 30GB) Zunes. The music player inexplicably entered a worldwide coma last night, and players are completely non responsive."

There's a bug in Android that crosses over from the realm of serious into self-parody: "It turns out the bug in Android I wrote about yesterday was worse than we thought. When the phone booted it started up a command shell as root and sent every keystroke you ever typed on the keyboard from then on to that shell. Thus every word you typed, in addition to going to the foreground application would be silently and invisibly interpreted as a command and executed with superuser privileges. Wow!"

"Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan. The researchers' new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously. Traditional antivirus software that resides on a personal computer checks documents and programs as they are accessed. Because of performance constraints and program incompatibilities, only one antivirus detector is typically used at a time. The researchers see promising opportunities in applying CloudAV to cell phones and other mobile devices that aren't robust enough to carry powerful antivirus software."

1983. The year of the IBM PC XT, the Apple Lisa, Pioneer 10 leaving the solar system, and Hooters opening up shop in Florida. It's also the birthyear of a 25 year old BSD bug, squashed only a few days ago.

"For at least a decade, the standard advice to every computer user has been to run antivirus software. But new, more commercial, more complex and stealthier types of malware have people in the industry asking: will antivirus software be effective for much longer? Among the threats they see are malware that uses the ability of the latest processors to run virtual machines that would be hidden from antivirus programs." Note: Please note that our icon contest is still running! So if you have an idea on how to rework this story's icon, read this.