Taterf
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Malware targeting gamers gets some mainstream spotlight
Those vicious and despicable malware authors are targeting gamers, according to BBC. I know, big whoop, right? The news article reports on something many World of Warcraft players have known for years -- that viruses, phishing sites, trojans, and all those dirty tech terms have us gamers smack in the middle of their digital crosshairs. The findings are a result from a study by Microsoft, which tracked the exceptional growth of a family of worms called Taterf. The programs have been around for some time now, snooping around players' computers for login details to various games with in-game currency. World of Warcraft players are juicy targets because of the remarkably large player base and existence of the gold-buying industry which Blizzard has actively warned and fought against. While the findings are nothing new, they only serve to confirm our fears about the growing threats to our accounts. WoW.com has been big about account security for awhile, and it's nice to see the mainstream media begin to show some attention to the matter.
Microsoft warns users of worm that targets MMO players
Remember how we always tell you to remain vigilant against malicious programs that can compromise your MMO account's security? Well, it seems we now have more reason to remain vigilant.Microsoft's latest security intelligence report covers the resurgence of worm type viruses and specifically mentions one that targets MMO players -- Taterf. As a worm, Taterf attempts to divine the user's account name and password through keystroke logging, reading the active memory, and even injecting itself into the game client. Either way, by the end of it, you end up naked and goldless. Hrm, we wonder if Taterf has been masquerading itself as our last girlfriend.
Two new keylogging worms to watch out for
Microsoft's malware blog is warning of two new worms that attempt to steal account information for online games from Windows XP or Vista users. These worms are breaking previous keylogging success rate records and are worth educating yourself about.The first one is called Taterf which has infected over 1.2 milion machines worldwide during its first week. The other worm is called Frethog and has so far a 650,000+ machine first-week infection rate. These rates are stunning to malware specialists who are used to seeing these kinds of numbers only after a month of the worm's existance. These worms take advantage of Windows' autoplay and autorun functions that run for CDs, DVDs, and some USB sticks. They can be sneaky about it too. They try to disquise autorun with other pop-up dialog boxes, like "Show me these awesome pictures." You do need to confirm this action manually, but this obstacle hasn't much limited the spread of the worms to date.Make sure you read the instructions on Microsoft's support site for how to protect yourself from these worms. The short answer is to disable autorun from CDs under XP (a registry change) or to change the same option from the Vista control panel. You should also disable autoplay as an even greater precaution. Also, of course, make sure you check the box on the WoW login screen to save your account name. That way if you do get infected with a keylogger, they won't be able to see your keystrokes for both your account name and your password.
