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Virus is disguised as MSN Messenger beta

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Viruses

Stephen Shankland CNET News.com

Published: 28 Dec 2005 09:45 GMT

A virus masquerading as a new beta version of Microsoft's MSN Messenger has begun circulating, antivirus company F-Secure said on its blog on Tuesday.

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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Redundant? Products from MS are often security ho... Olavi Petri

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On the contrary, if vendors were forced to stand behind their products it should increase innovation. It would force more, and better , testing before hitting the sales floor, resulting in fewer updates and less downtime for the consumer. At present the EULA removes responsibility from the vendor, and moves it to the user, which is a step backward. Make the vendor responsibility for their code.