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Melissa Strips For Captcha Translations
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-10-30
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Some enterprising malware creators have created an enticing piece of software to help them break common captcha schemes on Yahoo's sites.
 | | Melissa Strips For Captcha Translations |  |
The Trojan file making the rounds doesn't appear to directly threaten the PCs where it is launched. Trend Micro characterized the Melissa Strip program as a non-destructive Trojan they can detect with their antivirus software.
Plenty of male geeks may not care if Melissa Strip gets caught, however. In a clever piece of social engineering, those who made the Trojan set it up as a simple tradeoff. The viewer solves a displayed captcha, and Melissa loses some lingerie.
Using sex to encourage people to willingly accept a malicious file is nothing new. The legendary Sexy Ladies Trojan emerged from MacWorld 1988, and wiped out whatever drive it ran on while displaying images to the viewer.
In this new version, the people behind Melissa Strip want the captchas solved in an apparent attempt to compromise accounts on Yahoo. If they can build up enough captchas, they could be combined with stolen Yahoo credentials in an automated way to crack open a number of accounts at once.
As tempting as Melissa may be, it will be best to let the antivirus program catch her and send her home to put on some more clothes.
Captcha, Trojan, Melissa Strip
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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