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| HackArmy trojan reaches a new low |
| Tuesday, August 03, 2004 at 16:00 by Rich Kavanagh |
Hackers have reached a new all-time low with false claims that Nick Berg, the man captured and brutally killed in Iraq, is alive.
Hackers are claiming he is alive in order to spread a Trojan horse.
Anti-virus experts at Sophos are warning computer users that a file claiming to contain video footage showing that American captive Nick Berg is alive and well in Iraq actually contains the same virus (Trojan/HackArmy-A) which posed as a suicide note from Arnold Schwarzenegger and photographs claiming Osama Bin Laden had killed himself.
The latest message, posted to tens of thousands of Internet newsgroups, claims that Aljazeera has released video footage of the beheaded American alive and well. This message reads as follows:
"Conspiracy theories of Nick Berg being alive and well in Iraq have today been proven true. Aljazeera have released video footage of the supposedly beheaded American captive. The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic web site in Malaysia and has now been released by American Journalists collaborating with Aljazeera. The evidence speaks for itself and viewed firsthand here <url removed>."
Nick Berg was beheaded by Iraqi insurgents earlier this year who said they were avenging the Iraqi prisoners abused at Abu Ghraib jail by American soldiers. A video of Berg's gruesome death was broadcast on an Arabic web site at the time.
Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos said,
"Duping innocent users into believing that Nick Berg is in fact alive shows hackers stooping to a new low. This gruesome insensitivity is a despicable ploy to get curious computer users to download malicious files. The people behind Hackarmy are well versed in using morbid tricks to entice unsuspecting users - having recently claimed that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Osama Bin Laden were dead. This time, in an attempt to infect yet more PCs, they've resorted to claims that someone who was brutally killed is in fact alive."
As ever, we recommend you keep your anti-virus software up to date at all times.
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"As ever, we recommend you keep your anti-virus software up to date at all times."
Your readers deserve more meaningful advice than that!. Microsoft, through flawed design and negligent (lack of adequate) response to their product's vulnerability, has made all Windows computers into enemies of the Internet. How many years must we suffer through this absurdity?
If Windows users would but boot up Knoppix Linux from a CD and check email that way, it would help. If more Windows users converted to GNU Linux for their primary operating system, even more benefit will result.
"As ever, we recommend you convert your Windows machine to Linux. Forget anti-virus ." |
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