Fergie's Tech Blog

Look Beyond Executable Files, Botnet Researchers Warn

Tim Wilson writes on Dark Reading:

After years of education and awareness training, most users -- and their antivirus applications -- know to be suspicious of email attachments that carry the ".exe" suffix. But users and AV tools are fairly trusting of other types of files -- and botnet operators are beginning to take advantage of that trust.

According to a report being published today by Damballa -- an anti-botnet technology and research firm -- many bot herders are now recruiting their "zombie" participants or levying targeted attacks by hiding malware in real-looking documents that arrive in everyday formats such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

posted by Fergie @ 6/02/2008 01:57:00 PM