Virus disguises itself as MSN Messenger beta

By Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
28 December 2005 09:37 AM
Tags: virus, beta, msn, messenger, stephen, shankland
A virus masquerading as a new beta version of Microsoft's MSN Messenger has begun circulating, antivirus company F-Secure said on its blog.

The virus, which F-Secure calls Virkel.F, comes as a file called BETA8WEBINSTALL.EXE that can be downloaded from a Web site. Running the program installs not a new MSN Messenger beta, but rather a virus that sends download links to a computer user's MSN Messenger buddies. The virus falsely labels the link as "MSN Messenger 8 Working BETA."

"It also connects your machine to a botnet server," F-Secure warned, meaning that a person's computer can be controlled remotely to attack other machines or send spam.

Malicious software that uses instant messenger programs is growing more common. A November study by Akonix Systems identified 62 examples.

And Microsoft's instant-messenger infrastructure is the most popular conduit for attack, IMlogic said in an October study.

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Talkback 1 comments

    Msn32E.exe Grant -- 02/01/06 (in reply to #120126324)

    Im getting a Msn32E.exe file come up
    on zone alarm, then i can find it
    on the hard drive when doing a search.

    Do you think this is the same as the beta virus ?

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