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Computers Catch Bird Flu
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-11-01
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It's nice to see virus writers have a morbid sense of humor. One of the most recent viruses to hit the web waves is called the Naiva.A, essentially Avian spelled backwards. The kids at Panda spotted this low-risk, bird-brained virus last week and posted it on Monday.
 | | The Bird Flu Also Affects Computers |  |
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Panda reports the macro Trojan looks like a Word file and drops a Trojan virus called Ranky.FY. It can be spotted by subject lines like "Outbreaks in North America" or "What is avian influenza (bird flu)? It can also create, delete or modify files. The whole purpose of Naiva.A isn't to spread like some. It won't hit other Word files. It exists only to drop Ranky.FY.
Methods of transmission are the usual suspects: email, unclean disks, P2P networks, IRC channels, Internet downloads, etc. The first macro calls five kernel functions, which allows modifications to files. The second is the one that drops the Ranky in the form of an UPDATE.EXE file.
If you computer gets infected, the potential nastiness begins. Hackers can access your computer to send spam, squeeze websites for money and crash the sites too. None of this is terribly original but it still gets the job done.
If you think infection has occurred, make sure your antivirus definitions are updated. Most of the anti-virus software should offer you the option to delete the virus.
Make sure your computer doesn't get infected by utilizing some common sense steps. First, don't open emails and files from untrusted sources. This could be Word documents or a variety of other programs.
Also make sure your antivirus software is updated regularly. There are a wide variety excellent antivirus programs out there in both free and pay services depending on your needs.
This isn't first time hackers have attempted to utilize tragic circumstances to create problems. A number of other similar situations, including the London bombings and the tsunami were causes for viral problems.
This virus is pretty traditional in many respects in both what it does and how it's spread. While the more visible cyber crimes include things like ID fraud or huge viruses shutting down companies and costing them millions, Naiva is relatively low key. It still gives the hackers access to files and information, allowing them to whip through computers and stage some of the more dramatic attacks like spam wars or denial of service assaults.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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