Bin Laden Suicide Virus

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A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin Laden's suicide popped up on the Internet on Friday, designed to entice recipients to open a file that unleashes malicious software code, security experts said.

The virus was attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000 usenet newsgroups and is not being spread via e-mail, said Web security vendor Sophos.

The U.S. government has been hunting for Bin Laden since 2001, holding him responsible for masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, but he has not yet been found.

Chris Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, said the message and virus was designed to lure unsuspecting readers into opening a file, similar to the Anna Kournikova virus that enticed readers to open a file that unleashed malicious software code.

"If you don't know the person or the origin of a message, you shouldn't be opening it," Kraft said.

The fake Bin Laden suicide file, when opened, unleashes a program called a Trojan horse that makes it possible for attackers to take over infected personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

Kraft said the virus itself had already appeared on the Internet before, but the virus writer had apparently repackaged it by saying it contained Bin Laden's suicide photos.

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-- Yahoo.com

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"If you don't know the person or the origin of a message, you shouldn't be opening it," Kraft said.

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That's right kid's! :D

Am I the only one pissed off that Windows hides file extensions by default? It only works in the trojan writer's favor.

While I completely and totally agree with you, it is also a user's incompetence that work's most in the trojan writer's favor.

Define hideing? You mean known/unknown filetypes or padding? Either way... I really don't get the point of blameing M$, an OS, or (insert random scape-goat) because of other people's stupidity.

today, i cleaned a lusers computer that had 39 infections in it. 39, idiot. he sais he never opens any emails with attatchments, why lie when its obvious what happend? i still cant get over it. call to helldesk "Hello, my virus scan keeps popping up with a window saying im infected, i already deleted the file, but it keeps saying im infrected, anyway to disable it???" bleh, and the network and adminstrators are the ones that pay for the bandwidth and consequences.

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Am I the only one pissed off that Windows hides file extensions by default?

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ok, control panel -> folder options -> view -> uncheck "Hide Extentions for known file types"
tada

Then just be on the lookout for:
thishasareallylongfilenamebecauseitsavirustrojanorwhatever.jpg.exe
of course the filename would be more, shall we say, "explicit" then that.

Hmmm first the world trade now the internet...when will the taliban stop.. LOL j/k hmmm wonder when there will be a patch released for it.

It's a trojan horse application, not a vulnerability. No need for a patch, just don't download it to your computer and if you happen to, delete it.

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Originally posted here by Scary_in_Binary
Am I the only one pissed off that Windows hides file extensions by default? It only works in the trojan writer's favor.

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Perhaps you are not the only one, but pretty close. The people who should really be pissed are the ones who have no clue what File Extensions are. Let alone reconfig. of user preferences.

Remember a "functional" system depends a great deal on the "Moron" factor of it's operator. hehe


:D

Well I guess you could be pissed at it being the default setting. Same reason for which ICF isn't enabled by default and other things aren't all pink. But that doesn't mean the idiots are to be held less responsible.

I never thought I'd say this, but I guess I'm happy a lot of people are scared at the idea of Linux. A Linux machine that's poorly configured could be, possibly, of higher use for a malicious infiltrator. That would make Linux zombies more dangerous on the Internet, as attacks would evolve from DDoSes to something far more difficult to stop and/or prevent.

But that's just a hypotheses.

what worries me is that on windows the trojan can be found,on linux or unix because of the filesystems they use it may be easier to hide a backdoor. Still as long as you try to stay away from the root user you should be pretty right.???
Maybe.........

1. This particular trojan is aimed at Windows-only machines as the article states.
2. One trojan cannot be used on both *nix and Windows machines because the binary format is not compatible. If whoever makes the trojan decides to compile two versions [or more, depending on architectures and OSes] than the chance of it being extensively spread is exponentially reduced.
3. If a Linux box is trojanned it does not matter under what privileges the infiltration was made. Once remote access is gained to the machine rootkits and other flaws can be used to escalate privileges [just like it could be done on a Win box] if that would be the aim.

Most trojans are directed to Windows machines due to their relative wider spread. That combined with the fact that people using other OSes tend to know a bit more about basic computer security and are less likely to fall for tricks like this. No, I am not labelling Windows users as stupid [given that my limited knowledge of the Windows OS is without doubt better than my limited knowledge of the Linux OS]. Simply, the two factors make for trojan and virii writesr to focus on Win machines more. That's not to say such 'animals' do not exist for other OSes either.

It all boils down to stupid people. Its not microsofts fault its not linux's fault. Its a 50/50 split as far as blame goes. 50% of the blame goes on dipshit users who wont learn not to click on the attachment. The other 50% goes to the jackasses who feel the need to create the malicious code. Its one thing to do it in an isolated test environment but a completely diffrent to release it into the wild. Nobody ever says anything about the ******* that writes the virus/trojan/exploit but when they get busted they get treated like martrys. Take mitnic for example. Okay so he may or may not have been an uber h4x0r depending on who you ask but he was still a jackass. He did things he wasnt supposed to do and got busted for it. All of the sudden hes a national hero in hackerville.


Wow i got a little side tracked there. :)

Well with Mitnick there's another thing, namely the fact that he got a very long sentence only because what he did was through computers [he is notorious for social engineering but of course all with the purpose of gaining access]. If any other Joe would have done exactly what Mitnick did but without any relation to computers the sentence would have been quite different. [and I am completely side-tracked now :)]