Malware

On the eve of President Barack Obama's high-level meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. intelligence officials have revealed that a slew of documents and e-mails were stolen during the 2008 presidential campaign from both the president and then GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Officials are accusing China's government for the hack.

According to NBC News, officials said that they first detected the major cyberattack in the summer of 2008 and were then able to trace the culprits back to China.

"Based on everything I know, this was a case of political cyberespionage by the Chinese … Read more

Security researchers have found a proof-of-concept attack that appears to be the first true viral malware approach for compromising OS X.

The malware is called "Clampzok.A" and is a cross-platform malware package that alters the binary files on an affected system so when executed, the binary will infect neighboring binary files.

The malware is written in assembly code, and was originally released in 2006 for Windows and Linux systems, but was recently updated to affect 32-bit Mach-O binary files in OS X machines.

Unlike Trojan horses, spyware, and adware that hide in one location on the system … Read more

There is no question that regardless of the computing platform you use, malware happens. To help prevent these and other unwanted programs from running, Apple includes a data execution prevention routine called GateKeeper, which offers three layers of protection. The first allows everything to run, the second allows only applications signed with a valid Apple Developer ID to run, and the third allows only programs distributed through the Mac App Store to run.

Apple provides the Developer ID option with the assumption that most who use its Developer program create legitimate and trustworthy code, since their works will be easily … Read more

F-secure is reporting on new malware found for OS X, which appears to be a backdoor application that so far is known to take screenshots of the user's computer and then attempt to upload them to remote servers. The malware is being called OSX/KitM.A.

It's a small application called macs.app and was found on the Mac of an African activist who was a member of of the Oslo Freedom Forum. When installed, the application is appended to the current Mac user's log-in items so it runs whenever the affected user account is logged in. … Read more

Microsoft has issued a warning that a new piece of malware masquerading as a Google Chrome extension and Firefox add-on is making the rounds, threatening to hijack Facebook accounts

First detected in Brazil, Trojan:JS/Febipos.A attempts to keep itself updated, just like normal, legitimate browser extensions, Microsoft noted in a security bulletin late Friday.

Once downloaded, the Trojan monitors whether the infected computer is logged into a Facebook account and attempts to download a config file that will includes a list of commands for the browser extension. The malware can then perform a variety of Facebook actions, including … Read more

MacWorld is reporting that a program on the iOS App Store may be detected as containing malware, but in analysis the program is not considered to be malicious.

After its readers wrote in about the potential of malware in a game called Simply Find It that is available on the iTunes App Store, MacWorld confirmed traces of nonfunctional Trojan horse malware embedded in an MP3 file used by the program, which shows an HTML iframe reference to a potentially malicious (but currently unresponsive) Web page.

This is not the first time that malwarelike activity has been found in programs in … Read more

One of the ongoing malware sagas is a political fight that is targeting Uyghur activist groups in China, where spam e-mail laced with backdoor Trojan horse malware has been continuously delivered to members of these groups in an Advanced Persistent Threat attack.

This week, security company F-secure uncovered yet another variant of this attack being used.

Like prior ones, the new variant takes advantage of old vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word, by sending attachments that will embed the malware in the affected system if the document is opened in an unpatched version of Word.

The malware used has changed a little … Read more

Internet users are seeing less spam but more targeted attacks, according to security software company Symantec.

Looking at last year's security landscape, Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report 2013 found that traditional spam accounted for 69 percent of all e-mail in 2012, down from 75 percent in 2011. Yet, 30 billion spam messages are still sent on a daily basis.

Junk e-mails that hawk sex or dating products and services now account for 55 percent of all spam, taking the top spot away from pharmaceutical spam.

Malware is also part of one out of every 291 e-mail messages, with … Read more

South Korea has accused North Korea of launching a recent cyberattack that hit tens of thousands of PCs.

A spokesman for South Korea's Internet agency said today that six computers in North Korea were identified as the source of the attack, according to The Guardian. Those computers used more than 1,000 IP addresses from across the world to infect 48,000 PCs and servers at South Korean banks and broadcasting stations.

The spokesman told the Associated Press that the attack mimicked past hacking attempts by North Korea and pointed the finger at an espionage agency run by the military. … Read more