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Trojans targeting websites and virus code for cell phones
Dec 30 2004-All kinds of big viruses lately, the latest trojan is the Anti Santy virus and recently, virus code to infect cell phones have been released to the web.
The anti-Santy worm searches Google for sites that use the PHP Bulletin Board software exploited by the earlier worm, it then infects the sites and tries to patch the software, thus making the site more secure. Others have tried similar aproaches before, and they usually end up causing as much harm as the original virus.
Mikko Hyppönen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure, said that although the worm may seem beneficial, in fact it is likely to cause problems for administrators who will have to handle the increase in traffic.
"I can't comment how effective it is in fixing the sites," he said. "If a site is infected, the worm causes a huge amount of traffic and slows down the site. I don't think it's possible to write a beneficial worm."
Also of note is the source code for more versions of the Cabir cell phone virus is now available online, some virus writers could easily create their own versions of the virus.
The security company Sophos said that a 32-year-old Brazilian programmer has published the source code for the Cabir-H and Cabir-I viruses online, "Publishing virus source code on the Web is dangerous because it encourages others to create malware," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said in a statement.
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