Windows Live Messenger Targeted By Virus
November 13, 2007 – 4:48 pm
Although it happened in the past, I decided to write this article because this type of threats tends to become too dangerous affecting more and more users. Back in October, The Hindu reported that some sort of virus aims to steal the usernames and the passwords of MSN/Windows Live Messenger users by sending them to a malicious page. In fact, the entire exploit was started by a message sent through this popular instant messaging application which informed the users that his account is about to be banned. In order to keep the username active, the consumer was asked to visit a page and enter his username and password. The only problem was that the details were sent to the attackers who then used it to login into their accounts and send similar messages to the victims’ contacts.
This way, the attack could be expanded to reach new victims in a matter of seconds, as soon as new users entered their private information on the websites. But how can we stop this, how do we know that a certain webpage is really dangerous for our accounts? We can’t but keep in mind that the IM creators will never ask for your password, no matter what reason they mention. In addition, The Hindu reports that these pages can be easily identified because they usually end with “tk”, “hk” and “cn,” free domains used by many Internet attackers.
The instant messaging clients have always represented a popular solution to spread viruses and other types of threats because the applications are accessed by a huge number of consumers from all over the world.
Just look at Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. They have millions of users in every corner of the planet, all of them looking for a simple way to communicate on the web.
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