Thursday, May 19, 2011

One in 14 Downloads Is Malicious

The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There's a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.
In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway.
Five years ago, it was pretty easy for criminals to sneak their code onto computers. There were plenty of browser bugs, and many users weren't very good at patching. But since then, the cat-and-mouse game of Internet security has evolved: Browsers have become more secure, and software makers can quickly and automatically push out patches when there's a known problem.
So increasingly, instead of hacking the browsers themselves, the bad guys try to hack the people using them. It's called social engineering, and it's a big problem these days. "The attackers have figured out that it's not that hard to get users to download Trojans," said Alex Stamos, a founding partner with Isec Partners, a security consultancy that's often called in to clean up the mess after companies have been hacked.
Social engineering is how the Koobface virus spreads on Facebook. Users get a message from a friend telling them to go and view a video. When they click on the link, they're then told that they need to download some sort of video playing software in order to watch. That software is actually a malicious program.
Watch out next time your downloading something, you don't want these hackers ruining your computer!

13 comments:

  1. Youve just gta know where nt to go

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  2. That seems like a very high percentage, although I suppose a lot of people don't know the signs of a dodgy website.

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  3. I never worry about that stuff, My boyfriend is epic at solving those problems :P

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  4. Glad I don't have to worry about this stuff. I use Linux.

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  5. There are ways to save yourself if you do accidently download something malicious, so it's not the end of the world.

    I got done by a keylogger once. Very annoying since you have to use the on-screen keyboard and click the keys. It's the only way that it couldnt read what i was typing.

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  6. high percentage now day, but a lot of this dl's are GAME.EXE, easy to see the scam.

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  7. Not surprised with the amount of spam dished out these days

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  8. If a website asks to download a program to view it, it's usually Silverlight in my case.My reaction? I close the page :). Silverlight is not something I want installed on any of my machines.

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  9. I do virus removal, so keep downloading guys. Just kidding, but you would be amazed at how many people have malicious software n their machines.

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  10. With the amount of crap I download, I'm surprised that I've managed to avoid malicious things - at least to my knowledge. Then again, 1 in 14 seems like pretty good chances to me. ;D

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