14 DAY TRIAL // Here we go again! If 2007 was a pretty busy year when it comes to computer infections, worms, Trojan horses and other types of threats, it seems like 2008 wants to become at least as dangerous as its predecessor. January 1st came with the first Trojan horse of the year as security vendor Trend Micro noted in the last hours of December 31st. TROJ_DLOADER.CP is that kind of infection targeting most Windows versions including 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and even Server 2003. But what's worse is that it has a HIGH damage potential which underlines the Trojan's capability to destroy your data.
In case you're wondering how you might get infected, the answer is quite simple: all you need to do is to visit a malicious website specially built to drop the infection on your computer. In addition, TROJ_DLOADER.CP may be deployed by another malware already installed on the system.
"This Trojan may be downloaded from remote sites by other malware. It may also be dropped by other malware. It may arrive bundled with malware packages as a malware component. It may also be downloaded unknowingly by a user when visiting malicious Web sites," Trend Micro wrote in the advisory.
After the Trojan horse is successfully installed on your computer, it attempts to drop a huge number of other threats from several websites. As far I can see, most of them are hosted in China so I guess it would be safer to avoid suspicious Chinese pages these days.
"This Trojan then executes the downloaded files. As a result, malicious routines of the downloaded files are exhibited on the affected system. It then deletes itself after execution," the security company added in the security notification.
That being said, I wish you a Happy New Year and don't forget to update your antivirus. Just to be on the safe side?