IM Rootkit Worms For Everyone

from the can't-avoid-it dept

Recently, instant messaging worms have become quite popular as a way to distribute malicious files. Since better anti-virus systems and years of everyone saying never to click on an unexpected email attachment have resulted in fewer issues with emailed malware, it didn’t take long for malware writers to gravitate to the instant gratification of instant messaging — sometimes using some basic chatbot skills to trick people. However, for the most part, the lack of interoperability between the various IM platforms has kept such viruses limited. Unfortunately, it looks like the latest outbreak works on the big three IM platforms at the same time. AIM, Yahoo and MSN are all impacted. In the meantime, consider it a holiday reminder that your friend/colleague/relative probably isn’t sending you a link to a Santa Claus image.


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Comments on “IM Rootkit Worms For Everyone”

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1 Comment
Anonymous Coward says:

been there done that

pfft I had this idea years ago… it spread via aim, aol, irc, icq, msn and yahoo… it’s just a matter of setting up a local webserver and using SendMessage API to put text in the chatbox and send it… the only flaw was that it didn’t work on people behind routers or with incoming ports blocked.. a better system would have been to distribute via P2P + some IE epxloits…

my worm even has it’s own song named after it 😛

Artist: AFX a.k.a. Aphex Twin
Album: Analord 09
Song: W32.Aphex@mm

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