German security firm G Data put out an interesting press release last month regarding the expected successor to the Zeus trojan, which infected millions of PCs and captured bank account details.  The new trojan, Ares, has a similar modular design, allowing it to be easily configured for a range of target activities.

Malware is big business and a software development kit for Ares is already available to buy on-line, either for an upfront payment of $6,000 or else on a licensing model for when modules are subsequently sold on.  There’s even a cut-down version at $850.

The developer of Ares talked about the new malware in an underground forum. According to the author,  Ares is “not focused on banking. Every copy of Ares is unique to its customer and it has the same banking capabilities as Zeus & SpyEye which can be added provided the customer wants it. I actually consider this more of a platform which is customized to each buyers liking.”

Without a doubt, malware and virus writing is no longer the domain of the insecure nerd trying to prove his expertise to his peers.  This is now business, criminal business, with significant money involved. And when they catch the writer, I hope that the penalties will be commensurate.

Unless you want to be a victim, make sure you have virus and malware protection in place and keep it updated.

This show was a monster, lots of Audio comments from Call in Hotline at 619-342-7365 and a truckload of email. Lots of Tech Content and a new sponsor introduction tonight. Be sure to check out the sponsor link below. Lot’s of amazing news and commentary from all over the web. Big Thank You to the Ohana for staying subscribed and helping this show grow each month. Next stop SXSW in Austin will be recording live on Thursday night lots of fun for all.

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ISP’s paid group to spy on P2P users!
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Tabbed Out for SXSW Beer Tabs!
Net a fundamental right 4-5!
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iPad Apps may come up short!
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Ad Blocking and the Impact on sites!
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Regrettably, I don’t get to see my folks as much as I’d like….there’s 500-odd miles and a sea between us, so it was a rare pleasure for my parents to visit me over Christmas for a few days.

After a day or so, my dad says to me, “Could you have a look at my laptop?  Every now and then a strange Asian website keeps popping up.  I thought I had a virus but the virus scanner says all is well.”

So I had a look….and yup, he had a trojan.  Not a particularly nasty one and easily removed armed with instructions from the web.  It was  a variant of W32/Autorun-TR or Win32.Worm.Agent.QAL depending on your nomenclature.  I have to recommend Avira’s Antivir Rescue System which is a bootable CD that will scan the hard disk for infection – download from here.   It’s an essential item for every geek  – the Rescue System picked up the virus straight away.

However, what was more interesting was (a) how did he get the virus and (b) why didn’t his (corporate) anti-virus software pick the virus up?

Dad’s an MD for a specialised engineering firm, so he travels a little.  He’s reasonably technically-savvy but not an IT expert.  It transpired that he’d been in China recently and had shared a USB memory stick with a local agent.  This matched the modus operandi of the virus so that part of the mystery was solved.

What I couldn’t understand was, given the age of the virus (late 2008) and that the corporate antivirus software appeared to be working,  why it hadn’t the trojan been picked up as soon as the USB stick was plugged in?

A little further digging revealed the problem….although the AV software was working, it hadn’t successfully installed new virus signatures in over a year – the last successful update was from mid-2008.   The signatures seemed to download ok, but they never got installed into the AV engine properly. If I forced it to download updates, the activity bar would go to 100% and the window would close, so everything looked ok, but if I subsequently went to the dialog which showed the signature version, it was unchanged.

I’m not going to name which anti-virus software it was because I suspect part of the issue might be that my dad’s company hasn’t paid its annual licence and therefore isn’t entitled to updates.  However, I think it’s very poor that there isn’t a warning on startup clearly saying, “Virus signatures are now 18 months out of date – system at risk”.  If Dad had seen that 17 months ago, he would have been on to his IT dept straightaway to get the licences paid (or whatever remedial treatment is needed).  A severe virus outbreak could literally put the company out of business, so I suspect someone will be starting 2010 with an important task from the MD.

As geeks, we often get asked to provide a little free support at Christmas and other holidays.  While it may sometimes take us away from the drinks and the mince pies, it has to be our way of returning the favours that our friends and family do for us the rest of the time.

See you next year, Dad.

This will be like the US Tour de Todd as I will be all over the place over the next week. No meetups as I will have little time between each stop. I will have another early live show with hopefully no issues on Monday around 9pm Eastern

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Show Topic Notes:
Six-Core Intel Nehalem
Zeo’s Sleep Coach
Linux get USB 3.0 Drivers First!
Sharp LED Light
Amazon EC2 Outage Issues.
Virgin Mobile in US to sell Prepaid Mobile Broadband Cards!
Sad Stats on Low Income Broadband Penetration.
Outlook Users can now Sync to Google
Scoble Building43 Info
Building43.com
Get your Facebook Username Saturday at 0000 EST
How to remove Google Penalty.
Microsoft Money R.I.P.
Data Centers Behind the Scenes
Microsoft Anti-Virus Program for free?
Periodic Table to get new Element
Japanese Crash a Spacecraft into the Moon.
Endeavor launch count underway!
Fair Use Defense thrown out in New P2P trial!
UK P2P users largely ignore warning letters!
Class Action Suit against RIAA?
DJ’s Greed lands them in Jail
New Chinese PC’s can be Hacked Easily!
Trojans targeting Mac’s
Doom for your iPhone (I’m in)
Digital TV day of Doom is here
Earth to play bumper planets.
Technicians find bad stuff on PC get ready for Jail.
Play Free Poker watch the fed banking lock down.
Student Programming work can be posted online. (This case may be Unique)
Fake User name in Texas may become Illegal.
Sirius / XM bills going up to pay Artist
Elsevier Reveals more on Fake Journals
DVD Jon gets over on Apple Big Time!
Teen figures out longtime illness on her own!
When your time is up your time is up!

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Show Notes:
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Doc Searls on Steve Jobs -10 Years
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Windows Server at Home
iPhone Hack No AT&T activation

Panda Software, a respected vendor of antivirus software applications within the technical community, has named a Trojan, Downloader.GK, as the most malicious virus of 2004. Even though Downloader.GK isn’t technically a virus, an application that independently distributes itself, the program has caused the most damage to users’ computers, according to data collected by Panda Software’s ActiveScan process.

Until now, the first place award had been earned by a computer worm; however, Downloader.GK was responsible for 14 percent of all digital attacks, last year.

Dave’s Opinion
We may see this as an oppugnant award, encouraging us to take retribution; however, much of the responsibility for this Trojan’s efficacy falls on our shoulders. Downloader.GK requires unsuspecting users to visit an affected webpage and accept installation of a specific ActiveX control before the program modifies the computer’s Windows system registry. The payload is a set of adware programs.

We can be proactive in preventing the spread of this type of malware by being cautious of the sites we visit, never opening an e-mail attachment that we don’t expect, keeping our antivirus applications up to date and set to maximum security, using a software and, if possible, hardware firewalls, and, finally, using a third-party web browser that’s more secure, such as Opera or Firefox.

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.

References
Panda Software
Opera
Firefox

Watch out for a special present included with your e-mail Christmas greetings. A mass-mailing worm, W32/Zafi.d@MM or Zafi.d, is making the rounds of e-mail users and is transmitted in the form of a Christmas greeting card with the subject line of either “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” The e-mail message will appear to come from one of your acquaintances.

The messages of good cheer come in 15 different languages and the language is selected, based on the recipient’s -mail address. The worm modifies the system registry of Microsoft Windows computers, automatically self-executing when the computer is rebooted. Zafi will also seek out antivirus and firewall applications, overwriting those programs. The nefarious action of the worm is to open a backdoor on the PC, allowing the system to be turned into a zombie, remotely controlled to send more spam or participate in a distributed denial of service attack on selected websites.

Dave’s Comments
I’ve got as much holiday good cheer as the next person, but e-mailed greeting cards rub me the wrong way, especially at this time of the year. I think that holiday cards should be hand signed and either postal mailed or hand delivered. Take the time to show how much you care for your friends and loved ones, write them a card. Oh, and as for this worm; you know the drill: don’t open any file attachment that you didn’t expect, no matter from whom it comes.

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.

Bought Any Illegal Software From A Spammer, Lately?
The offer advertised in that e-mail message is awfully tempting. Microsoft Windows XP Professional for only $39? The entire Microsoft Office Professional suite for less than a few sawbucks? It’s real software, isn’t it? Well it sure is, and it’s a lot more, too.

Spammers stay in business because we’re buying their wares, and pirated software applications are one of the most popular products to be sold through spam advertising. Spam, unsolicited commercial e-mail, is not just a nuisance, but in the United States, usually illegal. Both spam and software piracy are big business: why not meld the two?

Dave’s Opinion
Here’s why you should never buy anything, especially software, from a spammer: you’re dealing with person of questionable, if not downright malformed, ethics. If the person is breaking the law (or at least the local common mores) by sending you spam, it’s not much of a stretch to think that the below-market price software he’s hawking may also be either stolen or illegally duplicated. Do you want to participate in the breaking of both national and international copyright laws by installing pirated software?

Moreover, that bonus software included with your order may just be a Trojan that turns your PC into a zombie for the spammer’s use in sending out even more spam … now you’ve become not only a pirate, but a spammer, too. Nice work.

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.