Posted on 01/14/2005 12:34:07 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A worm, dubbed Cellery-A (W32/Cellery-A), which poses as a playable version of the classic Russian computer game Tetris has been detected in the wild, security experts have warned.
The Cellery worm, which gets its name from a message it displays saying 'Chancellery', makes changes to Windows settings to ensure that it automatically runs when the operating system starts up.
While the Tetris-like arcade game is running, the worm plays a MIDI music tune, and searches for other network drives and attached computers to also try and infect.
"This worm puts up the Tetris game as a smokescreen while it tries to hop from computer to computer across your network," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"If your company has a culture of allowing games to be played in the office, your staff may believe this is simply a new game that has been installed - rather than something that should cause concern."
Sophos reported that Cellery is not the first virus to allow infected users to play games on their PCs. The Bibrog worm posed as a shooting game, while the Coconut worm, written by the female Belgian virus writer Gigabyte, gave users the opportunity to throw coconuts at photographs of members of the computer security community.
Although there have only been a small number of reports of the Cellery worm, Sophos recommends computer users ensure their anti-virus software is up-to-date.
Got to find a Tetris game for Linux...
Gee, it seems like all those PC programmers are buuuuuuuuuuusy with stuff like this... ;)
He's got the virus-writing bug
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Excerpt:
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For five years, Czech student Marek Strihavka programmed computer viruses as part of the underground group 29A.
A twist of fate, however, has led the former virus writer to take a job stopping digital pests like those he used to create. About a year after leaving 29A, which takes its name from the base-16 representation of 666, the 22-year-old resident of Brno in the Czech Republic became the main developer of Zoner Software's antivirus system.
Now Strihavka finds himself under attack. The Czech police have raided his home and confiscated his computer equipment as part of an investigation into the Slammer worm. In addition, some antivirus companies are attacking Zoner for hiring a known virus writer.
In an interview with CNET News.com, the man who used to be "Benny" claims that he never took part in spreading his programs on the Internet and maintains that virus writers contribute to online security.
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See link for the interview.
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That is funny. Why? Just because a lot of skilled virus writers already have jobs in the antivirus industry. I don't want to cause any problems to my friends, so I won't give concrete examples. But believe me, this is just marketing theater for customers--the truth is a bit different.
tech ping
Thanks for the bump, Ernest. Anyone else who has tech ping lists add me to it, please.
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