Computer viruses hit one Million mark!

This may be a pretty old news for many people, But I still want to discuss.

The computer viruses count has hit 1 Million mark this month. This count includes viruses, worms, trojans and other malicious code threats. This information was revealed by Symantec in their latest edition of bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report.


Thanks to Linux, I need not worry about 99.999% of them.

Here are the few interesting statistics.

1. The total number of computer viruses present is around 1,122,311.
   
2. Almost two thirds of them or 499,811 viruses were created during the second half of 2007.
   
3. Almost all of them target Windows operating system.
   

Links:

• BBC

IndiaTimes website ‘attacks on Windows visitors’

Yet another reason to use Linux is here.



It looks like visitors to the IndiaTimes website are being bombarded by Malware/Trojans, some of which appear to target previously unknown vulnerabilities of Windows.

IndiaTimes is one of most popular website of India. It has a Alexa traffic rank of 483, and most of its visitors are from India.

The real bad news is that, Visitors can be infected even if they have up-to-date systems and they don't fall victim to tricks to install software or browser add-ons.

ScanSafe, was the first to detect this security problem of Indiatimes website. According to ScanSafe, Indiatimes website is directly or indirectly serving up at least 434 malicious files, many of which are not detected by antivirus software, even with up-to-date virus definitions.

ScanSafe first detected the malwares on October 25, However the Indiatimes website is still serving malwares as of now. (Sunday 11/11/2007)

According to Mary Landesman, Senior security researcher at ScanSafe,

"The end result of the compromise is that the user, going through their normal course of activities, is subject to a really massive installation of malicious files," . "Coupled with the low detection by antivirus vendors, it does put the end user in a very vulnerable position."

She urged people to avoid the site until it's been cleaned up.

All this problems happens to only Windows visitors of the website, visitors who are using Linux or Mac OS will have no trouble of whatsoever.

Current solutions:

Currently there are two solutions to avoid this problem.

1. Avoid visiting Indiatimes website until the webmasters clean the website.
2. Use Linux.

I would prefer to go for the second solution.

Links:

• The Register
  
• ScanSafe Blog

Microsoft needs your Credit Card details ?

I recently came across an interesting Trojan sample, detected by Symantec as Trojan.Kardphisher.

The Trojan is not very technical - it's really just another classic social-engineering attack. What makes it interesting is that the author has obviously taken great pains to make it appear legitimate.

When you restart your PC after the Trojan is installed, this window appears:



You can only choose only Yes or No. You can't run Task Manager or any other applications. If you choose No your PC will be shut down immediately. If you choose Yes you'll see this image:



Now you may think "It can't be true. I have activated my legitimate copy of Windows. MS can't do such a thing!". Surely almost everyone will notice that something strange is going on, and hopefully very few people will actually become victims by inputting their credit card details. But unfortunately even the people who are not tempted to give up their information this time might well become victims the next time. After all, failure to follow the on-screen instructions results in your PC shutting down immediately.

Video : There is a movie which shows this threat in action. Check out the following video:



Solution : In the short run the solution would be installing some kind of anti virus and anti spyware software on your system. It is always better to have some anti virus and anti spyware installed in your Windows system. Also don't forget to update their virus/spyware definitions.

However the root cause of this kind of problems is the weak security model of Microsoft Windows. Windows security model is so weak that any program can gain the super user access and can potentially harm your Windows system.

Microsoft has stated that they have improved the security model of Windows Vista to avoid such kind of problems in Windows Vista, However still a very large number of people use Windows XP as their main operating system and for most of them it is not possible to upgrade to Windows Vista due to the hardware requirement of the Microsoft Windows Vista. For such people only possible solution is to install some kind anti virus/anti spyware and keeping it's virus/spyware definitions up to date.

A FREE alternative : There is a free alternative solution to avoid viruses and spywares. Yes, Your guess is correct. The solution is Linux.

As of now the users of Linux need not worry about viruses or spywares. The security model of Linux is very strong and it doesn't allow user program to harm the kernel space. Also there is SELinux to enhance the Linux security.

At present there is almost NO virus threat for Linux. It may be because of strong security model of Linux or may be just because of the small market share of Linux desktops. The developers of viruses/spywares want to hit to the mass audience, so they are most likely to develop such programs for Windows.

So I would suggest people to install Linux at least for internet browsing. The distributions such as Ubuntu are so easy to install and easy to use that any one can use it. Also Ubuntu sends the FREE CD's to those who ever requests for it. You can also request for FREE cds here. They will send the CD's to your door step for FREE.

Its worth a try.