[Boundless]

Duplicate. See Also:
RIP, IE

[beckett]

Norton picks it up as "download.ject" and stops it from scripting, thereby rendering it harmless. I got hit with it twice in the last three days. It attacks only those web servers which have not applied a certain patch to IIS software. If you visit a website hosted on a server without the patch, and Scob has found that server, you're vulnerable to "download.ject" if your anti-virus software has not been updated to stop it from scripting.

[hummingbird]

"Agin'...dang!"

[the_Watchman]

Attacks like this are the reason you should be using an active firewall. I use a NAT firewall in my router which blocks all normal incoming "probe" type attacks. However, firewalls will typically do nothing to prevent a trojan implant from a site which YOU visit.

A second line of attack is a firewall like ZoneAlarm [It is effective and it is FREE!]. The advantage of ZoneAlarm is that it will block messages being sent FROM your computer by untrusted software. You are forced to authenticate each application on your computer which sends messages.

If a trojan is installed, and if it collects private data, then it should still be blocked when it attempts to send the data back to the collection server.
*****
I keep my machines fairly up to date and my Norton virus protection very up to date. However, I visited a site supposedly selling equipment for the visually impaired. It looked legitimate. However, Norton did sound an alarm that a trojan was detected. Norton did NOT inform me that it had not prevented the infection. I didn't find out about the infection until the next scan two days later.

At the time of the scan, Norton was unable to delete the virus, which was running at the time. I could examine the virus enough to determine that it had been constructed in Russia at a firm started in 1991/2 to "monitor Russian legislation". [sure!]

I hand cleaned up the mess and found two collection files with email addresses that the virus had secreted away on my machine for later mailing.

The files installed, BTW, had randomized names so that searches on the executables did not produce any hits. Norton could not identify the trojan, it simply detected that an unidentified trojan was in operation on my machine.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Rudder]

How long has explorer been out? Seems like the software engineers at Microsoft are complete idiots if they can't put together a program without flaws within 15 years.

[greasepaint]

Everyone should keep in mind that these vulnerabilities
are designed in, so that Gates and his Hollywood buddies
can spy on you. Over time, these situations can
be exploited by others.

[Future Useless Eater]

On Friday SEVERAL security experts were recommending people abandon MS Internet Explorer, and most recommended Mozilla/Firefox.

...security officials are still piecing together how Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) servers -- widely used to host popular Internet sites -- became infected, passing the virus-like code onto other Web sites and Internet Explorer browsers.

"Fully patched Explorer users are attacked at will, silently," Dunham said, adding that the effort appears to originate from a Russian group of "hackers for hire" who have a history of developing Trojans or malicious code that can steal credit card data and similar information that would later be sold for profit.

Dunham [with the Internet Storm Center, added] that "Internet Explorer users should consider an alternative browser, at least temporarily.
Mysterious New Threat Secretly Plagues Internet

Good advice from the experts...


And even if you are using Compuserve, AOL, or Earthlink etc, from some CD that was sent to you, it MIGHT actually be Internet Explorer with a different 'face' added to it.

I recommend users do NOT install OPERA as an alternative to IE at this time, since that appears to be a SPINOFF from IE. Note a sampling of the HTTP headers from Opera users all say they are compatible with various releases of MSIE (Internet Explorer), so they therefore are ALSO most likely corruptible by these Russian worms/trojans.

(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.11
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.23
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) Opera 7.50
(compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows XP) Opera 6.05
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98) Opera 7.20
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98) Opera 7.22

...here's AOL 9.0. Note it IS Internet Explorer, renamed and customized
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 9.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

...by comparison, spinoffs from Netscape do NOT say "compatible; MSIE" in them...
(Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01"
(Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8"
(Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040316"

Most people using Compuserve, AOL, or Earthlink etc, or ANYTHING that came from your ISP can still LOG-IN with THAT software, THEN MINIMIZE it, and then use Firefox.

[Allan]

Ping

[Vigilantcitizen]

I've been using the Mozilla browser for over a year now, which came with e-mail, and html editor. I love it. Yes, it had some bugs dealing with graphic files, but it's otherwise been stable and secure.

Before I switched from IE to mozilla, my weekly ad-aware and spybot scans would turn up an average of 50 spyware cookies.

Since the switch, the weekly scans might turn up 1 or 2 spyware cookies.

Regarding a switch to linux, I've been considering switching too, but still keeping windows as a partition for local work only.

[Salvation]

BTTT!

Everyone needs to read this!

[snowstorm12]

Hey yall I have a question. I have been invaded by much of this spyware, trojans malware etc. One day my cd-rom opened up by itself! I almost flipped out, no joke.
I had popups everywhere and my google searches were messed up. I have spybot and ad-aware. When I first used them with the latest updates it didn't get rid of the google problem I was having.
Two days ago I updated spybot and ad-aware fixed my search engine problem finally yay!
My question is I still have these weird things on my desktop called o , bs5-nt15v , silent?
Do I have to wait for another update for ad-aware to get rid of these things?
Also I disabled my internet explore active x, java so is this good enough or do I still need firefox?
I use netscape is that better?