Hackers have historically taken advantage of major sporting events to release new viruses, worms and Trojan horse programmes, and the football World Cup next month in Germany, is no exception, said esecurity experts.
While in the past, hackers have offered tickets to tournaments and latest team scores to entice PC users to open malicious email attachments, this time around, the latest virus in circulation is a Trojan horse programme called "Backdoor.Win32.Haxdoor.in", according to security experts from Mumbai-based . The email contains the message "Fussball Weltmeisterschaft 2006 in Deutschland" (2006 World Cup Football Tournament in Germany) and the link "googlebook.exe".
This email offers football fans a chance to download a wall chart to keep tabs on football teams participating in the World Cup next month. The virus mail talks about the match plans and hotel bookings in an attempt to make it look authentic. It directs users to click on a link to download the schedule carrying the Trojan horse programme, which opens a back door on the compromised system and allows unauthorised access to a remote attacker.
It also attempts to log key strokes and steal passwords. Additionally, the programme lowers the security level of the Windows operating system and shuts down any anti-virus software on the PC. "We had detected another variant of Haxdoor Trojan in April called "Haxdoor.ie" , which was found to be used by botmasters to turn user computers into bots (computers taken over by hackers) and zombies, that eventually create large botnets out of a cluster of infected machines," said Mr Aneesh Paliwal, security analyst, .
This new virus is almost identical to its earlier variants except that this version comes with its own email engine. Infected computers are employed in illegal activities such as denial-of-service attacks and hijacking of servers to spread spam. Eventually, the hacker takes over almost every activity on an infected PC, said experts.
"There are a number of legitimate websites offering many such schedules and fixtures of World Cup Football and other sporting events alike. You just can’t blame someone for being lured by such a tempting mail," said Mr Govind Rammurthy, chief executive officer.
While in the past, hackers have offered tickets to tournaments and latest team scores to entice PC users to open malicious email attachments, this time around, the latest virus in circulation is a Trojan horse programme called "Backdoor.Win32.Haxdoor.in", according to security experts from Mumbai-based . The email contains the message "Fussball Weltmeisterschaft 2006 in Deutschland" (2006 World Cup Football Tournament in Germany) and the link "googlebook.exe".
This email offers football fans a chance to download a wall chart to keep tabs on football teams participating in the World Cup next month. The virus mail talks about the match plans and hotel bookings in an attempt to make it look authentic. It directs users to click on a link to download the schedule carrying the Trojan horse programme, which opens a back door on the compromised system and allows unauthorised access to a remote attacker.
It also attempts to log key strokes and steal passwords. Additionally, the programme lowers the security level of the Windows operating system and shuts down any anti-virus software on the PC. "We had detected another variant of Haxdoor Trojan in April called "Haxdoor.ie" , which was found to be used by botmasters to turn user computers into bots (computers taken over by hackers) and zombies, that eventually create large botnets out of a cluster of infected machines," said Mr Aneesh Paliwal, security analyst, .
This new virus is almost identical to its earlier variants except that this version comes with its own email engine. Infected computers are employed in illegal activities such as denial-of-service attacks and hijacking of servers to spread spam. Eventually, the hacker takes over almost every activity on an infected PC, said experts.
"There are a number of legitimate websites offering many such schedules and fixtures of World Cup Football and other sporting events alike. You just can’t blame someone for being lured by such a tempting mail," said Mr Govind Rammurthy, chief executive officer.