According to anti-spyware company Webroot on Tuesday, spyware program CoolWebSearch self-installs malicious HTML applications and exploits security flaws in IE.
"This has vexed all of us," said Nick Lewis, managing director of Webroot. "For consumers, CoolWebSearch is probably on of the most vicious programs in terms of how nasty it is. It completely hijacks the browser so you can't do anything."
Webroot said that CoolWebSearch is the most dangerous program in its latest list of the 10 worst spyware and adware threats. The company's threat research team has also discovered new versions of rogue diallers, keystroke loggers and pornographic Web page displayers.
"The people who write this stuff are gaining sophistication in their coding practices as they attempt to evade detection and removal," said Richard Stiennon, Webroot's vice-president of threat research. "These 10 are the most insidious programs in terms of prevalence and effect."
Webroot's list of top 10 threats includes PurityScan, a program that displays pop-up ads onto computers and claims it can delete pornographic images on the user's computer; Transponder (vx2), an Internet Explorer "browser helper object" that monitors Web browsing and sends relevant advertisements; KeenValue, an adware program that collects personal information and sends advertisements to users; and Perfect Keylogger, a monitoring tool that records Web sites visited, keystrokes and mouse clicks. It logs passwords, account numbers and other sensitive information.
Webroot recommends that users should install Microsoft security patches, avoid using freeware and disable downloads via ActiveX in Internet Explorer.
"It's Internet users' choice to keep or remove these programs based on the information available to them," said Stiennon. "We’re making sure they have that information so they are making knowledgeable decisions."
Talkback
Just don't use IE, it's as simple as that. Been using Firefox for 8 months now and I've had not one piece of spyware. Great!
Same here. I'm not going back even if MS payed me.
Err, I've been using XP and IE since they came out and I don't have spyware or viruses or any other malware.
I run the appropriate tools - simple!
As for Firefox, only a matter of time before it becomes a big enough target for attack.
Blaming Microsoft for everything fixes nothing. All major software, yes (yawns), even Linux has bugs and vulnerabilities. As long as IE has the majority share, it will be the target. If that changes, then so will the target.
The "big target" excuse of elaged "consultants" is really getting boring. Tons and tons and tons of non-Microsoft web and database servers out there. Any big problems? Nope.
Know what BIND is? Well, without it the Internet wouldn't function that well. Very big target. Take that down and you'll be in the history books for a long time. It's not from Microsoft. Any big problems there? Nope.
Cisco IOS then. Out there in huge numbers. Many of them not so securely configured or up-to-date. Plenty of security warnings even. Any big problems there? Nope.
Akamai. The infamous ad provider. 14000 servers in 1100 networks spanning the Internet. Every computer on the globe and somehow connected to the Internet makes contact with that network more then once. Very attractive target. Hack that network and you can certainly make the headlines. Does not rely on Windows. No big problems. Why?
Windows XP. Wasn't even on the market yet and already exploits and 'proofs of concept' went public. Despite SP1, SP2 and a huge vendor with a huge R&D budget it's not getting better.
No, the message now is that for real security you need to have Longhorn, Digital Rights Management and Bio Authentication. Oh, and purchase new licenses, buy new hardware and upgrade your third party products. Then see if everything still works and if you can figure out how things work this time around.
Basicly the same thing as what happened in the case of DOS, Windows 3, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows 2000. See a trend?
All your dreams fulfilled. Not just yet. Wait a bit longer. Just a bit longer. No, we won't fix your current stuff. We had to drop a few promised things in order to meet the deadline. Almost there. GIVE ME THE MONEY! We'll fix that soon. Not just yet. It's your own fault. It's the fault of the third-party. It's the fault of the developers. The one maintaining your computer doesn't have a clue. Our upcoming product will solve that. What that product can do? Well.... (repeat from start)
There's only one thing that'll attract attacks from wannabees to pros and that's not a big target. It's an easy target.
And there's only one thing that allows for unsecure stuff to be put on the market time and time again. And that's massive amounts of consumers buying unsecure stuff time and time again.
Question is why consumers keep buying unsecure stuff. My guess is that each and every time they're wrongly and incompletely informed by ignorent people claiming to have a clue but not a hidden, personal, agenda. Like certain "consultants' for example.
I have a problem. "Klikfeed.com" keeps popping up when I am in the middle of something,changes my homepage and throws lots of Viagra and sex sites on my desktop. Thousands are experiencing the same. There must be a way of stopping this.I do have anti-spyware installed.
do you have any solution already?
I represent klikfeed.com, we have nothing to do with that. It should be one of our dishonest webmasters who broke our rules, please post his ID on this board or send us email at mkdigital@gmail.com, and we will ban him from our network.
I had this program (virus), on my PC, I could not remove, it. Norton would not, or Sygate Serch and Destroy, or Adaware. I even tryed to delet the files manualy, as instrucked by a web page but they just kept reapering. I evenchaly gave up and thought it was asyer to reformate my system.
These people make my blode boil, if I new how they where I would have no wime about taking the law into my own hands and smaching up there pc's, as it's the only thing I can do.
Just a question really. I am fairly certain that I have been hijacked by someone following a fraudulent EBay member.
I am not certain how we can go about tracing this member without doing damage to my internet. I have just had a lot of intrusions sorted.
Any suggestions would be helpful, bearing in mind I am not ICT literate in as far as complicated language goes
I can HIGHLY recommend Mozilla Firefox as a secure web brower for Windows. The tabbed browsing function is great and you dont pick up any spyware. I use Mozilla for my internet banking.
Get mozilla from www.mozilla.org
To anyone out there with continuing virus problems on their Windows PCs, get a Mac mini and be virus free. You can use Open Office if you dont want to spring for a copy of MS Office for Mac, you CAN play games on the mini but make sure you have 1Gig of RAM. OSX is secure out of the box against ALL viruses due to its UNIX underpinnings and secure design as opposed to the old myth of "security through obscurity". OSX works very well on Windows specific networks and can be set up to log onto a Windows Server using the open source SAMBA which many Linux fans will be familiar with.