Bin Laden death brings malware explosion (Be careful searching the Interwebs for Osama news and pix)

MSNBC ^ | May 2, 2011 | Suzanne Choney

[Second Amendment First]

With the biggest news in a decade dominating the Internet, it didn't take long for rogue viruses, Trojans and other malware to mess with computers given the chance.

Web searches and links to a variety of stories — real and fake — about the death of Osama bin Laden are sprouting with all kinds of malicious software as cybercriminals look for a big payday tied to the appetite for news about the Al-Qaida leader's demise.

"The bad guys were quite fast and started to poison searches results in Google Images," said Favio Assolini, a Kaspersky Labs expert on the security software company's blog. "Some of the search results are now leading users to malicious pages." 

As an example, Assolini shared a Google search page with the words "osama bin laden body" typed in the search box. "When clicking an image in the results page, the user will be redirected to one of the malicious domains," antivirus.cz.cc/fast-scan/ and pe-antivirus.cz.cc/fast-scan/, he said. Both are "offering" a copy of rogueware called "Best Antivirus 2011." And both can bring your computer down.

"When searching, even for images, be careful," Assolini warns.

[Second Amendment First]

And the computer programmer quickly becoming known "the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it" even found his own blog server stricken by malicious software.
 
"It is a good thing my blog server is infected with malware today, I guess :-/" Sohaib Athar said on his Twitter page, after being inundated with questions by journalists and Twitter followers. 

But it is NOT a good thing if you click on Athar's website that's listed on his Twitter page. That's where some malware is sprinkled, and you could get hit.

[Second Amendment First]

Tech ping.

[Oratam]

I wondered last night if OBL had left instructions for a “Doomsday Plan” that would go into effect only after news of his death. He sure doesn’t need the web anymore.

[redshawk]

The level now is ‘half-black’ and ‘half-white’.
nuff said.

[ShadowAce]

[TheOldLady]

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[Buckeye McFrog]

a bigger malware explosion than “Erin Andrews Naked” produced?

[roamer_1]

rogueware called "Best Antivirus 2011

*rolls eyes*... Another round of FakeAV... Seems that's all I do anymore, is FakeAV...

[Riley]

We had a few cases of this crap to deal with today, wasn’t too hard to beat.

[bitt]

if windows updates are up to date, the monthlies can’t hit..

best quick fixer I’ve found is putting ‘superantispyware’ on a flash and running it, then hitting it with malwarebytes.