Network Security News

DNS-changing malware variant on the loose

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Security experts warned this week that they have seen a new variant of the DNS-changing Trojan.Flush.M malware that resembles a cyberattack from December.

The earlier version, which attempted to install a rogue DHCP server, allows cybercriminals to monitor traffic from the infected IP addresses in an organization network and direct other machines to visit malicious websites, security experts said.

The new variant is more sophisticated and hides the fake DHCP more effectively than the previous version did, experts said.

Cyberattacks, such as DNS-changing malware exploits, grew considerably in 2008. Security experts are warning that 2009 will be a year of constantly growing and changing cyberthreats, which has the potential to breach network security.

A recent report found that from January until November 2008, roughly 34.3 million PCs were infected with botnets, with a spike in attacks from June to August that led to a 476 percent rise in the number of machines infected.

Security experts said they expect threats to continue to evolve like the DNS-changing Trojan to include more blended attacks to avoid detection.

Cybercriminals are already using the poisoned DNS cache to bypass security and deliver malicious websites, experts said.