Mailinglist Archive

Imperfect Storm aids spammers
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2007-02-16

For 24 hours in mid-January, stock-fraud investigation site StockPatrol
disappeared from the Internet, overwhelmed by a massive flood of Web
requests coming from thousands of sources.

"At the heart of the attack was a single program designed specifically
to co-opt victims' computers to aid in sending stock-touting e-mail
messages and to participate in denial-of-service attacks--Storm Worm.
The program appeared on January 19 and compromised systems by luring
their users into opening the attachments of messages with subject lines
regarding current news events--including violent storms in Europe.
Because the program does not propagate on its own, the name adopted from
its subject lines is a misnomer--the Storm Worm is actually a Trojan
horse."

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11442?ref=rss