Trojan piggybacks on Firefox

A new Trojan horse making the rounds has been installing itself as a Firefox extension, according to security company McAfee.

The FormSpy Trojan attacks computers that have already been infected with the Downloader-AXM Trojan, according to a security advisory McAfee issued Tuesday in the US. Once FormSpy is executed, it installs itself as a component of the Firefox Web browser.

The FormSpy spyware then gleans sensitive information, such as credit card and bank account numbers, from the user's browser and forwards it to a malicious Web site. But this Trojan is capable of other tricks, as well, McAfee noted.

The main executable is also capable of sniffing passwords from traffic for ICQ, FTP (file transfer protocol), IMAP (Internet message access protocol, an e-mail management program) and POP3, McAfee warned.

Although the FormSpy Trojan is circulating, it is considered a low risk, McAfee said. What's more, people may have already taken steps to mitigate the earlier Downloader-AXM Trojan that is needed for the FormSpy Trojan to take hold.

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