Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have reminded
internet users to be on their guard following the discovery of a
spyware Trojan horse that displays pictures of a potential Russian
love match while secretly stealing information.
When first run on a user's computer, the Troj/Keylog-HD Trojan
horse displays a slideshow of 3 photographs of a young woman called
"Victoria Stasova". Accompanying the photographs is a love heart
and an AOL email address.
However, while the pictures are being displayed, the malware
steals keypresses and information from the infected user's PC which
could allow hackers to plunder bank accounts and commit identity
theft.
Two pictures from the Trojan horse's
slideshow.
"The danger is that people might think they are just looking at
pictures of a Russian beauty who is on the lookout for love. But
behind the scenes, information and keypresses - including usernames
and passwords - are being secretly stolen from the PCs by hackers,"
said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "One
of the ways in which malware like this could work is that computer
users could find themselves being chatted up online by someone who
they believe is a potential love match, and then be sent the
slideshow as the virtual romance blossoms. Having found new love
victims may rush to run the slideshow with their head in the
clouds, and not realise their finances are being consigned to the
gutter."
Although Sophos has not seen a large number of reports of the
Trojan horse, it recommends that users ensure their anti-virus
protection is up-to-date and they exercise caution about which
programs they choose to run on their computers. Sophos has been
protecting against the Keylog-HD Trojan horse since 22:26 GMT on 27
July 2006.
Sophos recommends that businesses defend their desktop and
servers with automatically updated protection against viruses, spyware and spam to
reduce the chances of malicious attack.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.