Worms are big things in the antivirus software industry and they have been playing havoc with short message website Twitter.

The Twitter engineers have had to work hard to plug gaps in their code which means that a flaw could be exploited by what the antivirus software industry call cyber criminals to embed pop-up messages which create links to porn sites.

At first users of Twitter only had to let their mouse mover over the message which had the embedded link and a new website (often porn related), would open in the browser. Quite a shock if you were wanting to read a Tweet from your favourite celebrity and all you got was a website dedicated to other matters. What worried the engineers most of all was that you didn’t even have to click on the link – just moving the mouse across the message was good enough to activate the url.

A worm, in antivirus software jargon, is a self-replicating piece of code which can cause havoc in a computer’s innards.

Security chief at Twitter Bob Lord wrote in a blog:
“This issue is now resolved. We apologise to those who may have encountered it. Users may still see strange retweets in their timelines caused by the exploit. However, we are not aware of any issues related to it that would cause harm to computers or their accounts. User account information was not compromised.”

It’s not the first time Twitter has been targeted and it certainly won’t be the last. A number of major Twitters were caught out by the problem, including, says the BBC, the wife of the former Prime Minister, Sarah Brown.

The embarrassing problem popped up for Twitter just after a major redesign job on its site. Interestingly, those people who used a third party website to read, or send Tweets, didn’t have the problem.

Experts say the problems lies in a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. This is a flaw which can be easily exploited by malicious code. In this incident, a command was written in the popular JavaScript which automatically directed people towards other websites, many of which were pornographic.

For anyone who understands coding and how it can be manipulated for nefarious reasons, a worm can be quickly written and then exploited on such websites as Twitter, much to the annoyance of antivirus software companies.

It’s reckoned that about 200,000 messages were compromised and observers believe that Twitter, which has been attacked on a large number of occasions, has to do more to protect its users.

Guest Article by Neil Camp 

If you are not convinced you need antivirus pc software then the creation of yet another virus may change your mind. The new virus is called W32/Wecrol.a. This new virus is classed as a worm.

What is a worm?

A worm is a computer virus that can spread from computer to computer without any human action. The worm uses file and information transport features to travel by itself. Worms can cause a lot of damage to computers as they can copy themselves on your system and send out thousands of copies. Worms often use your email address book to send the virus to everyone you know and this can multiply pretty quickly if the worm continues to do this on several computers.  

If a worm gets onto your computer or your server it can cause them to stop responding as the worm begins to take up too much system memory. Some worms burrow into your system and allow others to control your computer remotely for malicious intent.

The best antivirus software will prevent worms from getting onto your system and even protect from the latest worm Wecrol. The Wecrol worm copies itself to a temp directory, among other things it creates two registry files called Google and License. The ultimate goal of this worm is to connect with multiple domains so malware will begin downloading onto your system.

How can I avoid the Wecrol Worm?

As well as using good antivirus software you can avoid this virus by not executing any suspicious files ending in exe. If you already have the Wecrol Worm on your system you will get an error message which reads “Dcom Server Process Launcher Terminated Unexpectedly”.

How do I get rid of the Wecrol Worm?

If you have seen the above message the worm has already done permanent damage. You need to install and run the latest antivirus software. An antivirus tool will kill the worm but it won’t repair the damage done to some of your files for this you will have to reinstall your operating system.

Guest Article by Louise Goldstein

Proof that porn sites are often used to infect unwary surfers has been reinforced again with news that a new virus attack aimed at MAC users, as well as Windows operating systems.

Visitors to a certain porn site are invited to install an ActiveX object to be able to watch a video. What they actually download though is a Trojan computer virus. It’s called OSX/Jahlavc and once installed, can be a difficult pest to get rid of.

Another porn site has been identified as downloading malware which targets both PCs and MACs. It’s believed to be a new version of the MAC operating system X Tored worm and those infected get redirected to a page called pagemac.php page, which then downloads a QuickTime.dmg file.

Computer security experts are again warning that porn sights often harbour a whole range of virus nasties and that hackers are getting increasingly clever in getting unsuspecting users to download all manner of malicious code. And they are starting to use techniques used on social networking sites to good effect.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Computers in the National Health Service (NHS) have been hit by 8,000 viruses in the last year alone.

More4News instigated A Freedom of Information investigation which discovered the extent of the virus attacks which have included all sorts of malicious code including worms, Trojans and spyware. This has in some cases caused havoc within some departments of the NHS, causing postponed appointments, diverted ambulances and staff being locked out of their computers.

Apart from the widespread inconvenience, this has caused one department to suffer a three-week back-log of appointments.

One virus was caused Mytob and was a worm which caused chaos throughout London hospitals in November, 2008. Mytob quickly infiltrated networks and computers and simply overloaded systems.

But far from indicating a complete failure of the NHS computer systems, security experts say that it comes down to NHS IT staff not updating their systems properly. In other words, most of the virus attacks could have been prevented with effective IT management.

And for those that are concerned that such a lack of security might mean that their personal records might one day appear on the internet for all to see, the NHS point out that electronic records are protected by the highest levels of security.

After suffering 8,000 virus attacks in on year, that might be hard for many to believe.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

According to a recent report, around 12 million computers users in the U.K. have been on the wrong end of a virus attack in the last six months.

Viruses come in many shapes and forms, but people are now getting used to the words worm, hacker, malware and spyware.

And the report bemoans the fact that despite there being acres of media coverage on malicious computer attacks, and there being a multitude of anti-virus products, so many people still continue to fall foul of the cybercriminals.

The report also questions why such attacks continue, given the fact that 95% of those questioned claim to use anti-virus software protection.

Worryingly, of those attacked, nearly 40% stated the attack caused a problem to their system, with 10% saying that a virus attack had made their computer unusable. And 5% said that they had personal information stolen.

Nearly 10% admitted that the attack had followed after a visit to an adult content website, which proved theories that many cybercriminals use such sites to attract the unwary.

And when it comes to virus attacks, it seems that men are more vulnerable than women. Some 27% of men were affected, as opposed to 21% of women. Not surprisingly, it was the youngster being caught more often than their elders. Of those under 20, nearly 40% had been affected by a virus.

The report highlighted the latest worm scare that had worried computer security experts and users alike was the Conficker. Also known as Downadup and Kido, this worm has infiltrated an estimated 15 million computers worldwide and turns them into slaves, or zombies. They then form part of a botnet which is under the control of the hacker, and can either be used to issue millions of spam emails, or steal information off the systems.

The zombie computer, once infected, is helpless as it becomes under the control of the hacker. It opens the ‘back door’, allowing spyware and other malicious programmes to be downloaded deep into its systems. The user usually remains unaware of what is happening, especially as the worm stops the on-board anti-virus programme working.

Guest Article by Neil Camp