New Malware Attack Focuses on Syrian Dissidents

A phony protection device known as AntiHacker turns out to be spyware.

The actual Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is warning of the brand new malware marketing campaign focusing on Syrian activists, journalists as well as opposition members.

"The most recent malware marketing campaign performs into users' concerns about safeguarding their own protection by providing the fake protection device called AntiHacker, which promises to provide 'Car-Safeguard & Car-Identify & Security & Quick scan as well as examining' [sic] ... While it proports to provide security against hackers, AntiHacker rather installs a remote access tool known as DarkComet RAT, which allows an attacker in order to catch web cam exercise, disable the actual notification environment for certain antivirus programs, report key strokes, steal security passwords, and more," write the EFF's Avoi Galperin and Morgan Marquis-Boire.

"According to the watchdog, AntiHacker utilizes numerous techniques to lure people of the opposition to install the program, including social media stations such as Myspace," writes ZDNet's Charlie Osborne. "However, at the time of writing, the tool's Myspace team was not available. "

"This isn't the first time that Syrian activists came below cyberthreat," notes CNET Information' Dara Kerr. "In Might, the Trojan viruses specific dissidents in both Syria and Iran tracking users that attemptedto avert government censorship. This particular Trojan viruses transported a cargo associated with adware and spyware which captured usernames, Internet protocol handles, as well as hostnames associated with customers; it also documented any key strokes joined. The edition of DarkComet that AntiHacker is actually running isn't yet detectable by any anti-virus software, based on EFF. Nevertheless, users can make use of the DarkComet Informer removal tool to find out regardless of whether their own computer systems are infected after which remove the adware and spyware."

Researchers Alert associated with Harmful Shamoon Malware

The new adware and spyware is designed to ruin documents as well as overwrite contaminated PC's master trunk record.          

Researchers at a number of security firms tend to be caution of recent adware and spyware known as Shamoon, which corrupts files on contaminated Computers as well as overwrites the actual grasp boot record.

"According to Israeli protection company Seculert, Shamoon relies on a one-two punch, very first taking charge of the system connected to the Web prior to distributing with other Computers on an company's system," writes Computerworld's Gregg Keizer. "The 2nd phase -- that begins after the malware has done its dirty work -- overwrites documents and also the Master Trunk Record (MBR) of the machine. The second helps make the PC unbootable. 'They are looking for ways to cover their own tracks,' stated Aviv Raff, CTO as well as co-creator associated with Seculert, in a Friday interview."

"Based on McAfee, the data is actually lost completely and also the device is not recoverable," creates Pc Business Review's Steve Evans.

"The actual Shamoon adware and spyware came to gentle upon Thursday when scientists at Kaspersky Laboratory asserted they had examined samples that incorporated a few unusual and perplexing characteristics," creates Threatpost's Dennis Fisher. "One component within the adware and spyware includes a string having a name that includes 'windshield wiper' as part of this, something which might point to an association towards the Windshield wiper or Skywiper malware discovered earlier this year. Wiper was removing files from disks, however it doesn't appear that the 2 tend to be linked at this time."

"[Shamoon] so far continues to be aimed at a single energy-sector organization in the centre East, according to Symantec ... Symantec would not name the victimized organization, and thus much offers observed the attack only in this one business," creates Darkish Reading's Kelly Jackson Higgins. "What sticks out the majority of about the attack is the fact that it's aim is wrecking files, data, as well as crippling the infected devices."

"Shamoon is uncommon since it would go to excellent lengths to make sure destroyed data can never be retrieved, something that is actually rarely observed in specific attacks," creates Ars Technica's Dan Goodin. "It has self-distribution capabilities that allow it to distribute through pc in order to pc using discussed system hard disks. This overwrites hard disks having a small part of the JPEG picture found on the Web. ... The actual adware and spyware additionally reviews to the assailants along with details about the number of files that were destroyed, the IP address of the contaminated pc, and a arbitrary quantity."
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