Trick or Treat? The Top 5 Halloween Costumes
for Malware
Increasingly,
malware exploits are being cloaked as mainstream web applications. The Storm
Worm alone has tried a number of changing costumes � from online games to video
to VoIP � and, in honor of Halloween, we've compiled the 5 most noteworthy and
widespread malware 'costumes' of the past seven years.
Masquerading Malware Tricks Victims with
Tempting Treats
The
Bill Collector
Viruses
like Haxdoor
disguise themselves in emails claiming to be receipts of large online purchases
never made. This costume first appeared at the end of 2003 and F-Secure
estimates that over 100,000 systems have been infected to date.
The
Starlet
Malware
such as the VBSWG/OnTheFly
worm disguise themselves in emails claiming to contain risqu� photos of
celebrities. This form of malware has been in use for years, and started with
the Anna Kournikova virus in 2001. VBSWG was a toolkit used to generate email
worms automatically without any programming knowledge and several variants
using different celebrities as the theme were found shortly after. Thousands of
people were infected by this family of worms.
The
Casanova
The LoveLetter email worm
masquerades as a personal note of adoration. This disguise came about May 4,
2000, and to date, millions of people have been infected thanks to following
their curiosity.
The
Hero
Viruses
such as Swen.A
disguise themselves as security patches from Microsoft. This malware has been
loose in the wild since September 18, 2003, and has penetrated approximately
400,000 machines to date.
The
Chameleon
Since
F-Secure Security Labs first discovered the Storm worm in
January 2007, it has shifted disguises a number of times, including news
alerts, free games and YouTube videos. Storm's latest disguise is an e-card
featuring a kitten. This form of malware has propagated to several million
computers worldwide.