Home > Technobuddy > Archives > 2007 > April > 02 > Entry

Warning - Serious new hack attack

If you get an e-mail that suggests a nifty way to modify the cursor that appears on your PC’s screen, just trash that e-mail before it trashes your computer.

The e-mail directs you to a Web site to get the new cursor. Don’t go or you’ll be sorry.

This new hack is directed at Microsoft’s new Vista as well as some versions of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The malicious Web page downloads a program that exploits a bug in the computer code for the cursor. Once you go to the Web page, you’re sunk - the hacker can get into your computer remotely.

Here’s a link to a story that explains the problem in more detail.

I’m also linking to an AP story about the problem here

Folks this could be a serious problem - so please be careful. There are so many of these threats reported that it’s easy to shrug one off. I hope I’m wrong but I think this one could be a big problem.

Also note that the FireFox browser does not seem to have the same vulnerability - but even if you use FireFox or another browser it would be foolish to rely on that.

Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Viruses, spam, adware, etc.

Comments

By Liz

April 3, 2007 1:17 PM | Link to this

This may sound dumb - but I need a free unzip program for Windows 2000. I have downloaded a program that is zipped, and I can’t open it. I know Google has a free one, but it’s just for XP and Vista. Any ideas?

Thanks

By Bill

April 3, 2007 1:39 PM | Link to this

I haven’t used an unzipping program in a while for some reason - even the shareware I’ve downloaded has been in an EXE file that automatically unzipped. I started to say that I hadn’t unzipped in a while but that didn’t sound quite right.

Here’s a link to a program I have used

By CynicalGeek

April 5, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this

You can try Winzip (http://www.winzip.com) or 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/)

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