14 DAY TRIAL // Christmas is only history now and we're all expecting the New Year celebrations. Hackers, attackers and scammers are also preparing for the new event, but, as usual, they like to do it in an unique way: by building Trojan horses, infections and other types of malware designed to be installed on people's computers.
A new worm has already been discovered by security vendor Trend Micro, after malicious emails containing a link to a malicious page attempted to deploy an infected executable. The file is named "happy2008.exe" and tries to reach your computer through a website that reads the following message: "Your download should begin shortly. If your download does not start in approximately 15 seconds, you can click here to launch the download and then press Run. Enjoy!"
"(The affected IPs) look like a redirecting download site. But if you visit (them) with an outdated browser, you get automatically infected", Trend Micro Senior Threat Analyst, David Sancho, said according to a blog post on the company's website.
Trend Micro identified the infection as WORM_ZHELATI.AIS, a worm that targets most Windows versions including 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and Server 2003. But, what's more important is that it has a high distribution potential and a high damage potential, which underlines the danger caused by the worm.
"This worm usually arrives via email. It can also be dropped by other malware. It spreads by sending email messages containing a link, which redirect users to a malicious Web site where a copy of itself can be downloaded", Trend Micro wrote in the description of the worm.
Just like usual, you're advised to avoid reading suspect messages arriving in your inbox and block attachments that may infect your computer. In addition, keep your antivirus up-to-date with the latest virus definitions, in order to detect the threats as soon as they occur.