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The Malware Ruse

How effective is it? Who gets tricked?


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Facetime and F-Secure are reporting a new platform independent exploit on the Firefox web browser. This one's an insidious bastard: it grabs control through a 'drive by' and tricks Firefox into putting data on the local machine's clipboard.

Reports say it's dicey getting the data back off.

In a Flash

The BBC report the code being found in flash based ads found on legitimate websites which of course raises the bar even more. The exploit replaces the clipboard's contents with the nasty URL - over and over again.

There seem to be two workarounds for now: exit Firefox or simply reboot. 'It's a pretty clever technique', says Mikko Hyponnen of F-Secure.

Facetime have been following the exploit for several days and report seeing spam spreading with links to infected sites. 'There's been quite a rash of rogue antivirus hijacks lately related to the fake CNN/MSNBC spam', said Facetime's Chris Boyd.

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This is similar to the 'BREAKING NEWS' ruse but differs in that it attempts to trick punters into downloading more antivirus software.

Now who's more likely to fall for that?

See Also
Rant of the Week: Wsnpoem
Rant of the Week: They Think It's OK
Rant of the Week: The Microsoft Ghetto
BBC Technology: Clipboards Hijacked in Web Attack

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