Messenger tricked into delivering new worm

Nick Verhaar
With the number of mass mailing worms being delivered primarily via email these days, many email systems have evolved dramatically to become much more smarter and effective at detecting and preventing the delivery of viruses via email.
However, while this has slowed the circulation of many worms, it has definitely not stopped it completely, with virus authors beginning to utilise other mainstream communication tools to trick users into infecting their computers.
MSN Messenger is an extremely popular instant messaging tool used by people all over the world, and has become a focal point for delivery of many new viruses.
The latest worm to be distributed via MSN Messenger is the Kirvo worm, otherwise known as Trojan.Kirvo.B.
Disguised as a link to an interesting website, this virus automatically messages itself to all people saved in the friends list of any infected MSN Messenger user.
Upon clicking the URL, the Kirvo worm launches itself and begins to automatically fetch a copy of the Spybot Trojan, which allows the attacker absolute control over your machine.
The Kirvo worm itself doesn’t appear to have any real purpose other than to increase circulation of the Spybot Trojan.
Once infected with Spybot, a machine is at the mercy of attackers and will obey any malicious commands ordered by the attacker.
Thousands of computers all over the world are infected with Spybot and are secretly reporting in for command so they may be used like mindless zombies to attack major sites and servers online.
They can also be used to commit online fraud or even to deliver massive amounts of spam and viruses.
To avoid becoming infected with this or any other dangerous viruses, users are advised to update their antivirus definitions as regularly as possible.
Anyone who thinks they have received an email similar to this and has had their computer infected is advised to run an online scan such as TrendMicro’s House Call, which is freely accessible at housecall.trendmicro.com.