Halloween Virus Alert

[Mikeyredline]

Got this today from out IT department and wanted to pass it along.

Importance: High


To All Email Users,



We have received notification of a potential virus threat being delivered today, a new run of Halloween spam that invites recipients to visit a Web site and download a "dancing skeleton" - a computer program that purports to create a novelty dancing skeleton on your desktop. By visiting the site, users expose themselves to vulnerability exploits and an executable file named "halloween.exe". This is in reality a copy of the Storm Trojan which compromises the user's PC and merges it into a botnet - a network of computers that can be commandeered remotely by a controlling server.

The messages arrive under the guise of subject lines such as:



For people with a sense of humor only

Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween

If you are in your office, keep the speakers low, lol

Nothing is funnier this Halloween

Party on this Halloween

The most amazing dancing skeleton

This will make you laugh

You'll laugh your but off [sic]



The Storm botnet is a serious threat and is known to have control over many thousands of PCs. We recommend users take the following steps to safeguard themselves from this threat:

If you receive a message containing a link from a person you don't know, or haven't heard from for a long time, delete the message without opening it.
If you think you know who the message is from, look at the address of any web links very carefully. Be very suspicious of links that display as an IP address (numerical address) or that look similar to, but do not exactly match, the website address of any companies that you have dealings with. Don't click on the link in the message and don't click "OK" if it asks to download a file
Please be conscious of this threat and treat each email from an unknown source with great care; here at Federal and at home.

Thanks

[bc3tech]

o wow the botnet gets creative - one of my codeproject posts outlined their latest attack. pure genius.

[Cat Ion]

o wow the botnet gets creative - one of my codeproject posts outlined their latest attack. pure genius.

And you mean that in a purely objective sense, yes? I think it's crap that some knucklehead gets his rocks off by running this crap. Those people need a life....a life of covering grafitti and picking up highway litter....

[Paulumbo]

Whatever happened to good ol fashioned TPing houses? Now mofo's are burnin the city down and shit messin with peeps confusers......:shortbus:

[Cat Ion]

I think I see his appreciation for what they do. It does take a genius mind to hack a program. I would have no idea how to, however. I don't care to learn though. That's beside my point. I have an objective or morbid appreciation for the laws of physics put into motion through disaster. Gravity Kills, inertia kills, pressure kills, unstoppable forces and unmoveable objects....that sort of stuff. If I can appreciate and admire it objectively but despise its outcome, I think I'm ok. So if BC admires their genius in hacking and creating malicious code but doesn't turn to the dark side, then he's ok in my book.

Sorry for the rambling.

[bc3tech]

exactly. as a computer programmer, i see the "evil genius" behind the scenes to what they're doing. to think of doing some of the things that the botnet does is just... well... genius. that's not to say i'd want to be writing them. but it's more like an appreciation for Jigsaw in the Saw series of films. sure he's evil and sadistic, but you gotta admit some of the ways he thinks of to torture people are freakin genius.

i've always had a liking for the "guy who outsmarts the cops" so maybe that's where this all comes from :D

[soups06TR]

i've always had a liking for the guy


I KNEW IT!!!! :rainbow:

[bc3tech]

I KNEW IT!!!! :rainbow:
:nofu:

[soups06TR]

Damn that smiley, I thought you were laughing at first, then got the finger. Bastid!!

[bc3tech]

Damn that smiley, I thought you were laughing at first, then got the finger. Bastid!!
:fawkdance:

[Cat Ion]

Who said there's a fine line between genius and insanity?

[FunkyStickman]

Hmmm... halloween.exe? My computer says "not a valid Linux command"


ROTFLMAO!!!!!!:rofl:

[Cat Ion]

Aren't we just a mister "my computer can't get infected"!!!

[FunkyStickman]

I haven't had to buy an antivirus program in 4 years. Spyware? WTF is that? ;)

[Cat Ion]

I still run XP cuz I'm too stupid to learn another OS right now. I use Avira Antivir for my virus protection and Spybot S&D for anti spy software. I've crashed on Norton and on McAfee. I was turned towards Avira from a friend a while back. Then I read an article that listed Avira as the best antivirus software out there - even over the two biggest software names. What's the coolest is it's free! So far, so good!

[bc3tech]

antivirus / spyware is for ppl who don't know what they're doing. i haven't put antivirus on my WINDOWS boxes for a couple years now.
backatya FSM.

[Cat Ion]

antivirus / spyware is for ppl who don't know what they're doing. i haven't put antivirus on my WINDOWS boxes for a couple years now.
backatya FSM.

So what am I missing or doing that makes me so vulnerable? I don't go to crazy websites. I don't open emails from anyone I don't know - not even the spam crap. I automatically purge it out and empty the deleted items folder. But every so often I get a hit and I don't know how they get through sometimes. Avira seems to be doing a great job. I also run on a wired/wireless router so you know I'm pretty much invisible past the IP address.

[mrphoto103]

And you mean that in a purely objective sense, yes? I think it's crap that some knucklehead gets his rocks off by running this crap. Those people need a life....a life of covering grafitti and picking up highway litter....

+1000000000