My local paper reported on Internet security threats today, describing the creative new ways hackers are spreading malicious code. The article, “Hackers find new ways to spread spam, viruses,” describes the threat of malicious code embedded in online video players, according to a report released today by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center as it holds its annual summit this week.
The summit gathers more than 800 scholars and security experts as they discuss emerging threats and their possible countermeasures. Naturally, as we see an evolution toward more sophisticated anti-spam techniques, spammers attack with evermore sneaky techniques of their own to deliver malicious messages. Among some of the clever ways hackers hide their codes are embedding them in images or disguising them as PDF files.
The article says there have been “a few” cases of video-related hacking so far, including a worm that launches a corrupt website after a user opens a media file in a player, and another that silently installs spyware when a video file is opened. Spreading fake video links that contain worms and viruses have been attempted using YouTube.
The article goes on to say that hackers are exploiting social networking sites, which by their very nature rely on “viral” spread via users who want to share information.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t provide any advice on protecting yourself, but we outlined some safe-surfing tips in a previous MightyMerchant blog post. Another good anti-spam resource is The Spamhaus Project.
Posted on October 2nd, 2007 by Vanessa
Filed under: Security
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