Storming the Fools' Day

CHENNAI, INDIA: Web attackers are once again on the prowl on Fools’ Day.

Web attacks in the form of viruses and Trojans are not new, but in January 2007, the cyber world saw the birth of Storm worms, a breed that brings across a bot code that constructs huge botnets, which would then be employed by illegal ventures.

Botnets are built up on hoards of contaminated computer systems across the world. The preliminary code taints a system, launches a connection with a web server, which then offers instructions to the affected computer. Any bot-tainted system could emit spam or has the capability to spawn fresh versions of the instigating worm.

In sync with traditions

Carrying on with the legacy of spams and viruses striking on important dates, Storm has been spot on today.

Another aspect of Storms is the way they attack the host in a disdainful manner. They slip into a computer either as a PDF attachment or even via the MP3 file format.

This worm has the ability to accept commands from a network that is aligned in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Luckily, researchers have cracked the code leading to questions being raised on the encryption strengths of Storm. However, it would not be long before this worm comes out charging, perhaps in a mutated form.

What’s the latest?

It is highly recommended that you think twice before clicking on emails that have April Fools’ Day messages on it.

New versions of the dreaded Storm worm are waiting to corrupt computers and make it part of the ever-growing network of Storm worm botnet. The email would invariably contain a URL, which when clicked would open a page in the browser with an animated personality on it.

The next step would be the commencement of a download of an executable file with the extension—C:\WINDOWS\aromas.exe

It is advisable to be smarter and cautious than being sorry.