IM Worm Attack Cloaked in Virtual Card Hoax

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new Instant Messaging Worm on the loose that is wrapped up in more than a few interesting twists. The people behind the infection lure users in with a message on a Russian hosted website claiming to have 'a virtual card for you' — a reference to the famous Email hoax listed on Snopes and numerous other web hoax sites. At the point of infection, the worm opens up a picture of a heart (from a site called Quatrocantos.com that tackles web scams on a daily basis) — this picture itself related to a different 'virtual card' hoax from 2002. Bearing in mind the people behind this attack are deliberately serving up an image from a 'good guy' website related to virtual card hoaxes, the question is — are they attempting to create a real life infection out of a web-based piece of lore, making a calculated move to tie this attack into numerous Web hoaxes, possibly to confuse infected users looking for help online or simply having a little fun at the good guy's expense?"

All of it.

[Abreu]

are they attempting to create a real life infection out of a web-based piece of lore, making a calculated move to tie this attack into numerous Web hoaxes, possibly to confuse infected users looking for help online or simply having a little fun at the good guy's expense?

All of the above?

Stupid

[Dan East]

It's rather stupid for them to link to an image out of their control - especially considering it is hosted by their "enemy". Now Quatrocantos can change the image to display a warning that the user's computer was infected. I think that is more of an insult to or vendetta against Quatrocantos than it is some sort of cloaking or other intelligent design.

Dan East

Template for this story

[Sloppy]

Hostile code was sent to prospective victims, in the hopes that they would either be dumb enough to run it, or dumb enough to run client software that "helpfully" runs it for them. Of course, the hostile code should be run without any sandboxing, with all the same capabilities as the victim.

Now take this template, and fill it in with irrelevant and uninteresting details. Maybe the hostile code poses as something the victim has seen before. Maybe stress how amazing it is that people still fall for it. Maybe stress how amazing it is that people still run client software that supports easy execution of hostile code. Maybe leave all this out, so that the victims' ignorance isn't mentioned and therefore the hostile code sounds all the more threatening -- i.e. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, SO YOU BETTER BE SCARED (small print: if you're a fucking idiot who hasn't learned anything in the last decade or so). Now your article is ready to be submitted to Slashdot as a major story.