Rogue germ that steals personal info arrives via emails titled 'Personal security'

Stop! That email has a virus

Rogue germ that steals personal info arrives via emails titled 'Personal security'

Two new viruses have hit Indian cyber space this month, of which one is said to be thwarted.
A rogue anti-virus named 'Personal security' has been flooding cyberspace via emails which grab the attention of those receiving it as the subject line states 'personal security'. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT) announced a security alert regarding this virus on March 11.
Once the user clicks on the given link or attachment, a system tray icon is created, and shows an error message and at the same time connects to the remote server named 'safety.updated.com'.
Following this is a display of fake system scanning messages and the page header says 'Personal Security-System Scan'. The software then displays some detected malwares. If the user tries to remove them, he is asked to register and then an imitated fake security centre page is displayed.
By this time the rogue software drops the virus into the hard disk which will send confidential information from the victim's machine to the server from where the rogue anti-virus originated.
Another virus security alert was issued by the ICERT on Tuesday for which e-security firms till date have no repair. This virus called Backdoor.Sykipot also comes via emails and is spread while accessing compromised sites. This virus hits machines using Microsoft Internet Explorer on the Windows operating software. Once installed, the virus opens a backdoor on the compromised machine and then receives and runs several programmes from the computer.
According to the alert announced by Microsoft, this Trojan has a zero-day vulnerability which means that there is no cure for this virus till date. This Trojan steals system information like transaction ids, usernames, passwords and other details.
E- Security expert Vijay Mukhi said, "It is almost impossible to detect where these viruses are originating from. The only way to avoid being affected is to avoid clicking on emails from unknown senders and do not access sites that are compromised.
Keep updating anti- viruses on the machines." Leading e-security firms like McAfee, Symmantec, Micrososft and Kaspersky have also announced an alert about the Backdoor.Sykipot virus.