Virus disguises itself as MSN Messenger Beta

Published on December 28, 2005 By WebGizmos In Internet

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

Comments

Bichur

on Dec 28, 2005

_02

on Dec 28, 2005

I'm glad I don't use any messenger services.

sushiK

on Dec 28, 2005

Wow now that is a virus

Threi

on Dec 28, 2005

if the link doesnt point to microsoft messenger web site, then it shouldnt be downloaded...

viruses like these should be rather easy to spot....

Pete Morton

on Dec 31, 2005

The age of intelligent virus activity is coming, folks.

Viruses are becoming more and more sneaky...as Threi says, if the link doesn't point to MSN Messenger's site then don't download it. Simple.

PurrBall

on Jan 01, 2006

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