A Trojan inside a Trojan

Summary: Latest security news about Windows

Leaked copies of Windows 7 RC contain Trojan

Windows 7 RC, which Microsoft Corp. will officialy launch tomorrow, leaked two weeks ago, with copies first appearing on BitTorrent tracking sites on April 24.

Some of the pirated builds include a Trojan horse, numerous users said in message forums and in comments on BitTorrent sites such as Mininova.org.

Windows 7 Fail

Windows 7 RC is out today.

This is great news.

Because surely by now they've fixed Windows Explorer.

You see, in Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, Explorer used to Hide extensions for known file types. And virus writers used this "feature" to make people mistake executables for stuff such as document files.

The trick was to rename VIRUS.EXE to VIRUS.TXT.EXE or VIRUS.JPG.EXE, and Windows would hide the .EXE part of the filename.

Conficker hype obscures sneaky botnet growth

Botherders have taken control of 12 million new IP addresses in the first quarter of 2009, a 50 per cent increase since the last quarter of 2008, according to a net security report from McAfee. The infamous Conficker superworm has occupied all the headlines, and makes a big contribution to the overall figure of pwned Windows PCs, but other strains of malware collectively make a big contribution to the number of compromised PCs.

McAfee: New botnets dwarf Conficker threat

The Conficker worm, which has set off many a recent security alarm bell, may just be a small fry, compared to the growing number of botnets, viruses, and worms infecting cyberspace.