Thursday, February 2, 2012

WARNING: F.Y.I.

(Daily Mail)
A new class of cyber attack is threatening PCs - emails which infect PCs without the user having to open an attachment. The user will not even be warned this is happening - the only message that appears is 'loading'.

The email automatically downloads malicious software into your computer from elsewhere the moment a user clicks to open it. The mails themselves are not infected - and thus will not 'set off' many web-security defence packages. Security experts say that the development is 'particularly dangerous'.

'Driveby spam also affects cautious users which would never open an unknown attachment or link. Previous generations of email-borne viruses and trojans required users to click on an attachment - often an office document such as a PDF. The new emails - dubbed 'drive-by emails' - have been detected 'in the wild' by computer researchers Eleven Research Team. ''This driveby spam automatically downloads malware when the e-mail is opened in the e-mail client," says Eleven Research Team.

'Previous malware e-mails required the user to click on a link or open an attachment for the PC to be infected.'The new generation of e-mail-borne malware consists of HTML e-mails which automatically downloads malware when the e-mail is opened. ''This is similar to so-called driveby downloads which infect a PC by opening an infected website in the browser.' The current wave of emails arrive with the title 'Banking Security Update.'

To stay safe, the security company advises switching all security settings in email software to maximum, and updating your browser to the latest version so it's protected against malicious software...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bull, this isn't new. Preview exploits have been around for ages, especially for MS Outlook, etc. If you're paranoid, don't use MS email products, don't enable HTML in emails. Raw text won't hurt you no matter what. Besides, almost all the HTML-based emails come from someone trying to sell you something. Take some responsibility and get control of your email environment and stop whining.

Schteveo said...

The OTHER thing you can do is get OFF that stupid I.E., and Outlook and use Mozilla Firefox, and a gMail or Yahoo e-mail.

Most viruses are written to attack MicroSoft products because they are the big kid on the playground. Oh, and because everyone hates Bill Gates because he's rich.

(and by everybody, I mean socialist, OWS, would be fascist types)

For your bosses business e-mail acct's, you'll just have to be careful.

Spider said...

Wow. I apologize for trying to help. It sure won't happen again!

Schteveo said...

No, I'm not barking at you Spider by any means. An d I'm not sure 'which' anon that is, so I blew it off.

This is NOT the samo samo virus that's been out there for a while. The security types are saying it's been revamped to get around all the blocks that were put up LAST time it reared it's ugly head.

If only Bill Gates wasn't so rich!?

Schteveo said...

Anon,
I missed YOU on that blurb.

Not everyone can just opt out of those pieces of software. If 'THE boss' has that on Acme Incorporated's systems, then you gotta use it! At home or mobile, you can do as you please.

Of course the EASIEST thing is to just not OPEN ANY mail from places you don't know. Duh!

Spider said...

I didn't mean you bud.