Users Warned of Bogus Trend Micro Toolbar

Hackers are yet again re-launching attacks against users of Facebook. This time they are sending a spam mail which offers the download of a toolbar for Facebook. But in reality it loads a Trojan program onto the PC.

Security firm Trend Micro is cautioning users that a fake Facebook toolbar is purporting to be the HijackThis software of Trend Micro.

According to it (Trend Micro), it's true that its HijackThis tool is helpful for users to find possible infections on their systems as well as to assist them in manually eliminating malicious programs from infected systems. But, currently cyber-criminals are exploiting the product's popularity for personal gain.

The fraudulent spam mail posing as a message from Facebook.com states that the newly offered toolbar will provide users with an easier method to link up with friends and to also share stuffs with them.

While addressing recipients as friends, the e-mail tells them that they can now pull down the Facebook Toolbar online and it'll be simpler than before to connect and share with friends. So, when users hit a given "download here" link, a file named 'toolbar.exe' is obtained that has a black colored ball icon and the words "darkSector" depicted on it.

The fake toolbar's properties show certain information that's jumbled up and hardly has any relation to Facebook. Indeed, the file isn't any toolbar of Facebook, nor is it the HijackThis software. It's only a malicious program that Symantec software identified as Trojan.Dropper, disclosed the security researchers.

Furthermore, according to the researchers, all users are recommended to adopt a simple precaution of re-examining each file which appears suspicious. Mostly, attackers don't just care to check if the file they're dispatching is properly camouflaged, or they may do this improperly.

Thus, the researchers said that users should be very careful with undesirable e-mails coming into their inboxes and mustn't ever follow links embedded on them. And to remain sure if an e-mail message and/or a website are legitimate, Internet users must never forget to cross-check for security details from what should have been the actual source.

» SPAMfighter News - 19-05-2010

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