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April 28, 2005



How Malicious Software Can Infect Your Computer When Searching Online

 

Be very, very careful when typing "www.google.com" into your browser's address window. If you inadvertently type (do not do this) "www.googkle.com", your computer will be infested with Trojan droppers, downloaders, backdoors and spyware, and an unsuspecting user only has to visit the page to be at risk of computer hijack attacks, according to a warning from Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure Corp.

When googkle.com is opened in a browser, two pop-up windows are immediately launched with redirects to third-party sites loaded with scripts. One of the sites, ntsearch.com, downloads and runs a "pop.chm" file, and the other, toolbarpartner.com, downloads and runs a "ddfs.chm" file, F-Secure said.

Danger.jpg
Photo credit: Valentina Degiorgis

"Both files are downloaded using exploits and they contain exploits themselves to run embedded executable files. One of the Web pages of the 'toolbarpartner.com' website downloads a file named 'pic10.jpg' using an exploit. This JPG file is actually an executable that replaces [the] Windows Media Player application," the warning reads.


Googkle.jpg
Photo credit: Techtree.com

As at the time of publication of this news article, there has been no response reported from Google's Press Center.

You can get the latest updates on this topic through an RSS-based news radar I have just created by copying the link into your RSS news aggregator (e.g.: Bloglines): Googkle


Reference: F-Secure [ Read more ]
Conversation Tags: , , , , ,
Readers' Comments    
2005-04-29 15:56:59

flash menu DBI

I just checked it out and I got a "not found" in Firefox on Win2K.

flash menu DBI



2005-04-28 09:33:53

Ugo Cei

Curious, I just went there and nothing happened, no popups, no redirects ... and no viruses I think, but I can't check as I don't have an AV installed.

Hmmm, I'm wondering if this is because I am using Firefox on OS X? ;)





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posted by on Thursday, April 28 2005, updated on Tuesday, January 2 2007


 

 

 

 

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