Helsinki, Finland - January 19, 2007, A significant network attack was launched globally in the early hours of Thursday morning (GMT) using news of a European storm as the hook to lure the unsuspecting. The message, which was created and launched literally as the storm raged, is exploiting a timely widescale media event as the key mechanism for delivering its payload.
The Trojan was distributed in messages with subject line of "230
dead as storm batters Europe". The payload in this case was the
Small.DAM Trojan that was downloaded into all vulnerable machines
upon opening of the spam mail’s attachment such as "Read More.exe".
Once inside the machine, the Trojan creates a backdoor that can be
exploited later by the malware authors behind the assault.
As has been seen with other attacks, the likely intention is to
create a new raft of zombie computers to steal information and to
further propagate large-scale spam and phishing runs.
In addition to the headline "230 dead as storm batters Europe"
the spam uses a number of other provocative headlines. Attachments
may be of the following filenames: "Full Clip.exe"; "Full
Story.exe"; "Read More.exe" and "Video.exe".
The assault was first picked up by F-Secure Security Labs Kuala
Lumpur during the very early hours of Friday European time. The
timing of the assault and its detection in Asia leads researchers
to believe that the assault also originated in the region.
Speaking about the case, Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer
at F-Secure said: "Trojan assaults of this scale are an unfortunate
and increasingly common event. What is significant here though is
the timely nature of this assault in relation to the European
storm. Malware gangs are clearly using every technique and even
tragedies like these to gain access to vulnerable machines."
F-Secure's security products detect and block Small.DAM.
About F-Secure Corporation
F-Secure Corporation protects consumers and businesses against
computer viruses and other threats from the Internet and mobile
networks. We want to be the most reliable provider of security
services in the market. One way to demonstrate this is the speed of
our response. According to independent studies in 2004 and 2005 our
response time to new threats is significantly faster than our major
competitors. Our award-winning solutions are available for
workstations, gateways, servers and mobile phones. They include
antivirus and desktop firewall with intrusion prevention, antispam
and antispyware solutions, as well as network control solutions for
Internet Service Providers. Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been
listed on the Helsinki Exchanges since 1999, and has been
consistently growing faster than all its publicly listed
competitors. F-Secure headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland, and we
have regional offices around the world. F-Secure protection is also
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Telekom, France Telecom, PCCW and Charter Communications. F-Secure
is the global market leader in mobile phone protection provided
through mobile operators, such as T-Mobile and Swisscom and mobile
handset manufacturers such as Nokia. The latest real-time virus
threat scenario news are available at the F-Secure Data Security
Lab weblog at
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/
For more information, please contact:
F-Secure Corporation
Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer
Mobile: +358 400 648 180
Email:
firstname.lastname@f-secure.com
