IP: virus alert

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Georgi Kostov <kostov () snowball pcbi upenn edu>
>
> Folks,
>
> There is a virus circulating around.  It can be activated by using
> Internet Explorer and going to specially designed web pages that make you
> think you are downloading a sound/etc. file (see announcement below.)
> Or, it can come as a mail attachment _disguised_ as a multimedia file, but
> is actually an executable, like the one mentioned in the Internet Explorer
> advisory.  I just got the latter kind.  The attachment pretended to be of
> MIME type Audio/X-WAV, but when saved (and many e-mail clients save
> automagically) it may be called Sorry_about_yesterday.MP3.pif, which is
> what I just got, and is an executable under Windows.
>
> FYI,
> Georgi
> _____________________________________________________________________________
> The following is a quote from InfoWorld:
> THE INFOWORLD SCOOP P.M. EDITION, Wednesday, December 12, 2001
>
> IE HOLE CAN BECOME A 'BACK DOOR' FOR HACKERS
>
> Posted December 13, 2001 08:14 Pacific Time
>
> AN ATTACKER COULD trick users of Microsoft's IE
> (Internet Explorer) Web browser into downloading and
> running a malicious program by disguising it as an
> innocent file, a Finnish security company has warned.
>
> The file name as it appears in the IE file download
> dialog box can be faked by using certain URLs and HTTP
> headers on a Web page, making users think they are
> opening a media file when in fact they are installing
> a "back door" on their PCs, according to Oy Online
> Solutions, based in Jyväskylä, Finland. A back door is
> a program that can be used by hackers to enter a
> user's PC.
>
>
> For the full story:
> http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/12/13/011213hnbackdoor.xml?1213thpm

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