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Beware of any email invitation to the Beijing Olympics. The malicious mails are supposed to be as an invitation to the Olympics but actually these are E-mail virus which once opened affects MS word, MS PowerPoint and MS excel applications on your system. The virus could allow the remote attackers to take complete control of an affected system, or cause the application to crash.

Experts at Trend Micro’s TrendLabs have confirmed that these mails are malicious. Country Manager – India & SAARC, Trend Micro, Niraj Kaushik said, “When exploited, the unspecified remote code-execution vulnerability could allow remote attackers to take complete control of an affected system, or cause the application to crash.”

“Among others, if you receive any email that has an attachment file named attachment .doc, appeal_letter_of_fttj.doc, attend_the_opening_ceremony_of_the_29th_olympic_games_in_beijing.doc, five_resolutions.doc, or lingotto_con_fiat.doc, be warned that opening it may make your computer vulnerable to attack,” added Kaushik.

Experts said that the malicious .doc files are spreading in the wild which are taking benefit of the ongoing Beijing Olympics in China, the popular event of the time. This makes the receiver to click on the mail and open the files. The samples that TrendLabs has come across are detected as TROJ_MDROPPER.ZT.

Kaushik added, “The Olympics event having such a big fan-following, the potential of people unknowingly getting lured into opening such Trojanized files is huge. With 10, 708 athletes competing in 28 sports for 302 gold medals, the Olympics is the most prestigious affair of its kind, and as such command a worldwide audience. It is thus expected that it will be included in malicious users’ arsenal of social engineering techniques.”

These files are zero-day exploits under vulnerability summary CVE-2008-2244 under the Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures (CVE) List of the National Cyber Security Division of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Besides TrendLabs has also reported Trojan samples of .XLS and .PPT circulating, all drawing correlation to the ongoing Olympics and the Tibet conflict. Trend Micro detects the malicious Excel file as TROJ_MDROPPER.ZY, and the PowerPoint file as TROJ_PPDROP.M. Unlike the Word file malware, these Excel and PowerPoint files are not confirmed to have zero-day vulnerabilities as yet.

If you are also getting these kinds of mails, do not take as an invitation. It is malicious mails which can damage your system. Avoid opening them and delete them at once.

Tags: Beijing Olympic, E-mail, Excel, MS Word, Olympic, Powerpoint, Trend Micro’s, Virus

A report from Eastern China is confirming the attack of the deadly virus there. This virus has taken the life of around 21 children’s and more than 3000 are still affected from it.

The virus was identified as Enterovirus 71. Early reports related to the spread of this virus came in March in the Fuyang the eastern province of Anhui. Authorities reported it publicly on Sunday.

This virus Enterovirus 71 is suppose to spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain or its lining. So far no anti virus dose or vaccine is available to prevent this virus.

Chinese media has started heated discussion on the delay in reporting the virus to the public. They are criticizing the authorities for it. Officials have said that almost all of those infected were children under the age of six and most were under two.

Tags: Anhui, China, Fuyang, Virus, Virus Attack