Bin Laden's suicide images virus (split from NOD32 beta forum)

Messages are being posted containing links which direct users to a website that supposedly contains images of Bin Laden's suicide which can be downloaded. Hiding in the shadows is a trojan which enables hackers to gain remote access to infected computers running Microsoft's Windows.

The messages containing the virus were posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and according to Sophos, a web security vendor, is not being spread via e-mail.

Source: http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156861 and Hwg.com

 

Virus Purporting Bin Laden Suicide Hits Web, Be patriotic, but smart

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin Laden's suicide popped up on the Internet on Friday, designed to entice recipients to open a file that unleashes malicious software code, security experts said.

The virus was attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and is not being spread via e-mail, said Web security vendor Sophos.

The U.S. government has been hunting for Bin Laden since 2001, holding him responsible for masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (news - web sites) on Sept. 11, 2001, but he has not yet been found.

Chris Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, said the message and virus was designed to lure unsuspecting readers into opening a file, similar to the Anna Kournikova (news - web sites) virus that enticed readers to open a file that unleashed malicious software code.


"If you don't know the person or the origin of a message, you shouldn't be opening it," Kraft said.


The fake Bin Laden suicide file, when opened, unleashes a program called a Trojan horse that makes it possible for attackers to take over infected personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows operating system.


Kraft said the virus itself had already appeared on the Internet before, but the virus writer had apparently repackaged it by saying it contained Bin Laden's suicide photos.


The MUL

 

An extremely cunning method by the hackers... fancy using fake photos of osama to lure people. They must be mad.

 

Reports of Arnold Schwarzenegger's termination a viral lure

Trojan trash cans


By INQUIRER staff: Sunday 25 July 2004, 07:28

[img]http://netcomm.spinbox.net/?SIT=TheInquirerMPU[/img]
TROJAN TRASH have moved "seamlessly" from luring victims to download trojan worms using Osama bin Laden's "death" to faux reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger has committed suicide. See this one.

If you see these messages on USENET or in your email, beware the clickitude, which as in the bin Laden emissives, claim to have a picture. Click on the picture if you're a Windows user and your machine becomes a member of the Trojan Living Undead.