Automated Malware Troubling Yahoo & Microsoft IM

Officials at Microsoft and Yahoo have discovered a new automated malware program affecting the Instant Messaging (IM) services of both e-mail service-providing companies.

The malware program gets automatically active without taking any action by user and installs onto his system. It infects users' contact and friend list in the instant messenger platform of both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Interestingly, new malware is completely different from conventional malware that usually comes with an attached links. The new malware infects machine without clicking on attached link.

After installing in the system, malware replaces advertisements of a Website to which user is visiting with advertisements of a third party. Moreover, after eliminating the malware, when user boot up his system, the system shuts down.

Besides, neither spyware nor antivirus programs are able to detect the malware, and it is traveling freely on the net. Owing to its new creation, deletion or catching of malware is quite a difficult task. Even worse, when some users try to delete it, they found that their registry in windows has been changed. The color of screen changes into blue on rebooting. In addition to causing harm to screen on rebooting, malware also targets the Internet when it's installed.

Till now, no antivirus software developing company or spyware detection company has come forward with claim of patching or catching the malware, if it resurfaces in future with new update. Even reputed online security providing companies, McAfee, Destroy and Spybot Search, have failed to offer any fix for malware.

Therefore, Microsoft and Yahoo's security researchers have recommended users to update antivirus software frequently and use IM services cautiously till a new fix for malware comes up.

Nowadays, scammers are increasingly concentrating on identifying vulnerabilities in IM services because they are comparatively easier to target than other services. In related news reported in the last week of February 2008, researchers at IM Security Center, Akoni, integrated risk management and policy solutions for real-time communications, tracked twenty new malevolent codes that attacked IM networks last month. The attacks rose by 43% from January 2008.

Related article: Automated SQL Injection Critically Compromises Websites

» SPAMfighter News - 3/14/2008