Privacy, Security & Virus Information

You Can't Even Trust Microsoft Updates These Days

Recently a malicious spam campaign has been unearthed that was found to be hiding behind the guise of a fake Microsoft Update notice. Those who were caught unprotected by this virtual wolf in sheep's clothing found themselves living with a Trojan horse in their computer's registry. To be honest, security analysts have stated that the spam was easily to spot to the practiced eye, but those who are less experienced, or believe that anything to do with Microsoft has to be good were taken in, although exact numbers are not yet known.

The Trojan horse came in on an e-mail, relatively well disguised to give the impression that it was sent by from Microsoft Support. The subject line as well as the e-mail body was highly plausible, and despite Microsoft's tarnished security reputation of late, many people were apparently taken in by it. The attack was well planned and executed and what may have arrested it spread is that Microsoft have successfully educated their many millions of software users not to expect software updates on any other day then "Patch Tuesday". The hackers behind this particular virus may well have been trying to take advantage of the wave of panic surrounding the recent raid on Google through IE6.

But despite the pressure on Microsoft to clear up their security, anyone who knows anything about viruses and how to protect themselves will never open an e-mail attachment that comes even such a reliable company as Microsoft themselves. There are even computer owners who got an e-mail with an attachment from god@heaven.com would have serious doubts regarding t its impunity. Those who did fall for the scam inadvertently unzipped and installed the .exe suffix file containing the nasty Bredolab Trojan as well as a download a rogue antivirus program going by the highly misleading and not so original title of "SecurityTool.".

If it's any compensation to Microsoft, in the second half of 2009, hackers also used Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo accounts to send ever-more personalizede e-mails, some of which even succeeded in fooling the receiver into believing the e-mail came from a legitimate source. Instead the spoof e-mails linked back directly to malware or phishing sites, and sometimes indirectly by linking to content on a legitimate site that then lead them to a malicious website.

Of course all these people who did fall for the e-mail attachment trick could have saved themselves a lot of inconvenience and expense by installing a reliable and powerful software program, that would have nipped the Bredolab Trojan horse in the bud before it even reached a canter.

 

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