Windows Security alert on Ubuntu OS!

I was checking out some cites while preparing for the upcoming ICT seminar of 06CSE that to be held in Jaffna. Suddenly a pop up took me to the site freescanreveals.org. The site was showing a nice screenshot of 'my computer' showing the list of affected files, repeatedly prompting me to install the anti-virus to cure the virus attack. Funny! It has faked a Windows XP OS nicely on my Ubuntu 9.10. [ROFL]

Anyway the fake messagebox was so real that can scare any of the windows operating system user by using "System Security Antivirus" messages. It was a loop, so I had to forcefully shutdown the browser. Finally I confirmed from Spamhaus that freescanreveals.org is a reported attack-site posing as providing an anti-virus software.

Please make sure your virus identifies my operating system and acts accordingly.

Open Source Viruses!

Back Orifice (Currently known as BO2K) (often shortened to BO) is a controversial computer program designed for remote system administration, well known for its launch as an open source project. This program can effectively control your computer from a remote location once your computer has become a client. As BO2K server can be installed without the user's interaction, it can be distributed as payload of a Trojan and hence listed into the virus database by Anti-Virus programs, neglecting its legitimate use as an administrative tool.

It is often discussed whether 'open source virus' is a concept in practice or just a myth. Murphy's Law: Sometimes, an Open-Source Virus is Just a Virus - Views mentioning a virus/malware can never be considered to be open source, as it is not installed with a user agreement, as a reply to the post "Why virus writers are turning to open source". Another post focusing the Back Orifice developers - "Transatlantic Cable : Could the Cult of the Dead Cow be your friends?"

"Behind the scenes of online fraud" discusses about the online frauds along with some precautions. We were discussing more about Ethical hacking, malwares, and the behaviors of crackers during one of our recent CS4050 module lectures (Hence got the idea of a small research on Open Source Viruses ;)). From the discussions we had, it seems online fraud has become a popular hobby. Computer Crime, Act, No 24 of 2007 published by the Parliment of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka discusses the identification, investigation, and prevention of computer crimes. Online crimes are no more considered a fun that is tolerated!