Osama Captured - E-Mail is Malicious Trojan

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Another trojan is on the loose this time attacking by using a nice social engineering trick within an email to get unsuspecting users to click on a link which then downloads the trojan to their PC. As the trojan is not attached to the email you AV software will not recognise it as being malicious so be warned.

More details below:

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April 23, 2004
'Osama Captured' e-Mail is Malicious Trojan
By Ryan Naraine

Those "Osama Bin Laden Captured" e-mails hammering your in-box today will
attempt to download a Trojan if the embedded URL is clicked, anti-virus
experts warned Friday.

Glendale, Calif.-based Panda Software said the URL embedded in the e-mail
directs users to what appears to be an advertising page before exploiting a
known security vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser
to download the trojan.

The fake news item, purporting to come from CNN or the BBC and promising
photographs and video of Bin Laden's capture, first appeared on instant
messaging networks earlier this month. According to security analysts, it is
yet another use of social engineering tactics by spammers to direct traffic
to Web sites.

The "Osama Bin Laden Captured" hoax includes following message text:

"Hey, Just got this from CNN, Osama Bin Laden has been captured! Go to the
link below to view the pics and to download the video if you so wish:
(Internet address) "Murderous coward he is." God bless America!"

If the link is activated via IE, the browser auto-executes a file called
"EXPLOIT.EXE" and downloads an executable trojan, identified as
"Trj/Small.B."

The "Small.B" trojan opens ports on an infected machine and can be used to
hijack PCs for use as spam zombies. The trojan has the ability to listen on
the open port for instructions and redirects traffic to other IP addresses.

"Spammers and hackers can take advantage of compromised systems by using the
infected computer as a middleman, allowing them to pass information through
it and remain anonymous," according to information provided by McAfee
Security.

A spokesperson for anti-virus firm Sophos told internetnews.com the
malicious trojan will only affect users using an unpatched IE browser.
Microsoft has issued cumulative patches the IE browser to plug known
vulnerabilities. The latest updates for Internet Explorer are available
here.

http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/ar ... hp/3344641

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/ ... rojan.html