Instant Messanger virus?

Is it possible to get a virus from an instant messanger if I only chat with people I know? I have AIM and am running AOL 9.0 optimized and have Win XP.

well, if you are just sending messages of just text, you are fine. however, if you are trading files, even with friends, you may become infected if a friend sends you and infected file. but just text messages, you should be safe. i still reccomend to keep AV running though...


slick

Its not possible, but you should also watch what links your friends give you. If your are sure that you only chat with your friends, might want to set it to buddy list only. Go to the privacy options and select allow only users on my buddy list to contact me.

So now if someone not on your buddy list wants to talk to you, you have to get there screename first.

i wouldnt say its "not possible" rather that an exploitable vuln hasn't been discovered/released for it to date. i know thats what you meant Fatphantom i just tjink it needs to be made clear. there could be a 0day working right now. As far as following links go i would recommend against following links your friends send you. although if you feel you must make sure the person who sent it is net savvy and well aware of the hazzards involved and hope for the best. if a person isnt the brightest bulb in the string s/he's the one that will get you infected for sure.

Normally with mIRC and pirch you could make a worm drop scripts. For example script.ini in mirc then in pirch its events.ini I think and then in xirc you could simply tweak the registry. As for things such as MSN messenger, yahoo, & AIM... they all have guess what!! They have some very interesting API to play around with.

Hehehehe.... fun :cool:

Anyways with all that stuff you'll have just enought control over IRC and IM clients to send copies of the worms or direct peaple to sites with some nasty scripts.

Its not only possable but its very common now & not to mention easy as **** to do.

LOL you need to be careful even when it is text sometimes beacause one of my friends used some software which makes a link special for AIM only and once you click it you will get a website that does not exist and the person who sent you the link has your IP :D
There is a way to see into it and its simple lol...just point your pointer onto the link if it shows a ip address then it's his ip and he is trying to get ya ip....if it shows a link to a website then you should be ok...Just wanted to point that little thing out in a big paragraph...duh dummy thats me :D

Norton Anti-Virus 2004 will can IM.. (It scan MSN Messenger) and other.. (Does it realy work, no idea)

I dont think its possible just from talking but it is possible if you click a link or open files. My friend as virus that radomly spit links into an aim convo and if u click them u will be infected.

As everybody said, I'm sure links can infect you. Text messages most likely will not. However, if you found a way to send a message to the "Targets" computer via text it would be incredible. The problem however is that the text window does nothing to the messages, just posts them. So a "text virus" would probably execute on a "on arrival" command. That is more psuedo psuedo code, but I'll look into it a little.

-Cheers-

Just a note:
Don't use this crap. It's safer to use mIRC than this instant messager crap.