New Spybot.AKB Worm Spreads Across Peer-to-Peer Networks and Email, According to PandaLabs

Spybot.AKB Uses Google, Twitter, Amazon, Hallmark and Hi5 as Lures

News provided by

Panda Security

Feb 18, 2010, 11:06 ET

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, has detected a new worm, Spybot.AKB. It spreads using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) programs by copying itself to the usual shared folders with different names, and also via email. What's new about Spybot.AKB is the way it tricks users, spreading under the guise of an invitation to join social networks like Twitter and Hi5, or in an email that appears to be from Google, replying to a job application. Another new feature is the way it installs on computers, passing itself off as a Firefox security extension. For screenshot examples, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/4367549638/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/4366803381/.

Email subjects of what a recipient could receive include examples such as:

  • Jessica would like to be your friend on hi5!
  • You have received A Hallmark E-Card!
  • Shipping update for your Amazon.com order 254-71546325-658732
  • Thank you from Google!
  • Your friend invited you to twitter!

Once installed, Spybot.AKB redirects browsers to different websites if the user launches a search with any of the following words:

A: Airlines, Amazon, Antivir, Antivirus.

B: Baseball, Books.

C: Casino, Chrome, Cialis, Cigarettes, Comcast, Craigslist, Credit.

D: Dating, Design, Doctor.

E: Explorer

F: Fashion, Finance, Firefox, Flifhts, Flower, Football

G: Gambling, Gifts, Graphic.

H: Health, Hotel.

I: Insurance, Iphone.

L: Loans.

M: Medical, Military, Mobile, Money, Mortgage, Movie, Music, Myspace.

O: Opera.

P: Pharma, Pocker.

S: School, Software, Sport, Spybot, Spyware.

T: Trading, Tramadol, Travel, Twitter.

V: Verizon, Video, Virus, Vocations.

W: Wallpaper, Weather.

It also takes a series of actions to compromise the security level of infected computers, adding itself to the Windows firewall list of authorized applications, and disabling the Windows Error Reporting service and the User Access Control (UAC).

More information is available at the Panda Security Encyclopedia: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/security-info/.

About PandaLabs

Since 1990, its mission has been to detect and eliminate new threats as rapidly as possible to offer our clients maximum security. To do so, PandaLabs has an innovative automated system that analyzes and classifies thousands of new samples a day and returns automatic verdicts (malware or goodware). This system is the basis of collective intelligence, Panda Security's new security model which can even detect malware that has evaded other security solutions.

Currently, 99.4 percent of malware detected by PandaLabs is analyzed through this system of collective intelligence. This is complemented through the work of several teams, each specialized in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, phishing, spam, etc), who work 24/7 to provide global coverage. This translates into more secure, simpler and more resource-friendly solutions for clients.

More information is available in the PandaLabs blog: http://www.pandalabs.com.  

SOURCE Panda Security

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