Spam News

Virtumondo trojan can jump to USB devices

Friday, March 20, 2009

Security researchers said yesterday that that the computer trojan known as Virtumondo is infecting computers through the autorun feature, which allows it to jump to USB thumb drives and other removable devices.

Virtumondo has gained worming capabilities, security experts said, allowing it to transfer from computer to computer through USB devices employed by unsuspecting users. Cybercriminals using autorun to spread malware has spread worms like Conficker to millions of computers.

The worm can attach itself to browsers, bring up fake search results and prompt advertising pop-ups that promote phony security malware, among other cyberattacks, security experts said.

Virtumondo, also called Virtumonde or Vundo, has been tracked for several weeks by researchers in the UK. One experts said the worm uses a technique known as "server side polymorphism" to constantly change the packaging of the malicious DLL file.

Updates stream to the malware at several times daily, but the file may only change once or twice every 24 hours, experts said.

The trojan can be used for a variety of malicious purposes such as rootkits, polymorphic viruses and spamming tools, which may signify that cybercriminals are "loaning" the worm to others for their cyberattacks, according to security officials.