MSN, YIM Users Targeted With a Fake Application

A friendly-appearing Internet application is actually hunting for the YIM and MSN credentials of the users. The fraudulent application promises the users to help them in discovering if some their acquaintances or friends have blacklisted them recently.

Loredana Botezatu, a communication specialist at BitDefender, writes in a blog that YIM and MSN users are particularly targeted by a sophisticated social engineering scam, as per the news published by MALWARECITY on June 3, 2010.

What all the scammers require is to write their passwords and account IDs in the "Blocked or Not" webpage with the mere intention of tracking those users who still have the victims in their lists. As soon as the credentials are entered, the curious user remains just a click away from knowing the deceiving friends who blacklisted him.

The moment user clicks, he is prompted to install an adware software. According to security experts, adware refers to the software that automatically displays, plays or installs ads to a PC after the installation of software on the system or when the application is in use. Some kinds of adware are also known as spyware.

In this case, the application ultimately alters the start-up page as well as the default search engine with the malicious intention of tracking the browsing habits of respective users. The underlying aim is to create user's buyer profile and to make it possible to carry out targeted distribution of ads on a massive scale.

ID and password collectors gather significant number of account credentials to be misused in a variety of illicit activities, including spam attacks, impersonations, etc. The stolen credentials are used by scammers to establish the connection of MSN/YIM IDs to various other user accounts and even to set the online banking passwords again.

It is noteworthy that the same technique was used in Facebook clickjacking scam in the first week of June 2010.

Thus, the security experts have urged users to avoid entering their IDs and passwords on suspicious websites by believing fake application.

Related article: MSN Messenger – A Medium for Worms to spread

» SPAMfighter News - 6/18/2010