14 DAY TRIAL // The dangerous Storm Trojan is out in the wild again and lurking, waiting to infect people's computers, and this time the approach is a bit different. It's no longer playing on people's emotions for various holidays like in the past, with Christmas or Valentine's, probably because there aren't any around. But that can't bring the production line to a halt.
Various electronic greetings have been spotted by security firm F-Secure, all unexpected by the receivers. The catch line is very similar to those usually being sent, "Check out your ecard," it reads. Inside the email is a link to a website that will infect the user's computer and turn it into a bot with the purpose of sending more email spam without the owner's accord or knowledge.
The redirected-to webpage has a clickable picture that will download a file called e-card.exe, containing the Storm Trojan. Even if the user does not go for the click, waiting on the page long enough will automatically start the download of the malware, as will clicking on the link provided for the eventuality that the download of your alleged card does not begin.
"The files are variable but they always do the same: infect your system with the latest Storm variant," said F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen. The previous occasions the Trojan was encountered had to do with the 14th of February, although the emails relating to it began circling the web almost a month earlier, and prior to that, around New Year's there was also a wave of season greetings delivering malware.
Storm is said to be the largest zombie network on the Internet, and has its name coming from the original emails being sent, related to the freak weather seen in many parts of Europe last year, according to Web User.