Security Response

This is now getting a bit tedious but the Twitter and Koobface bandwagon just keeps on tumbling down the slippery slopes. Today there are many reports of yet another variant of Koobface doing the rounds through Twitter. The tweets doing the rounds contain the following messages:

• My home video :)
• Watch my new private video! LOL :)
• michaeljackson' testament on youtube

I had a look for some of the hacked twitter accounts myself and found a few unfortunate souls whose accounts have been hijacked to spread this malware. Here's one example I have found below. Some of the TinyURLs are pointing to the AdultFriendFinder Web site; the one below is not responding but appears to be active.

Other URLs are directing users to a fake video Web site that contains the usual Codec-type social...

Not content to let the Dozer and Koobface guys have all the fun, the Ackannta crew has unleashed another new variant on the unsuspecting masses. Today we saw in our spam traps a new variant of Ackannta that we have added detection for as W32.Ackannta.G@mm. Ackannta is a family of mass-mailing worm that also copies itself to removable drives. It has been noted to use well-known brand names and big news items (such as the recent Michael Jackson story) in email campaigns in the past in order to trick users into opening it.

At this time we are seeing this worm being sent out through emails in low numbers. The emails have the following characteristics:

Subject:
 Jessica would like to be your friend on hi5!

Body:
 The email body is written in HTML and is a poorly made copy of the...