Banking Trojan hides in fake Alonso F1 crash story

Fabricated news of a supposed car accident involving Formula One star Fernando Alonso is being used to distribute a new banking Trojan. The fake news story, supposedly from Spanish daily El Pais, has two-time motor racing champion seriously injured on Tuesday in an accident in the norther city of Bilbao. The bogus story, …

[Jan Buys]

And when...

... will spam/trojans/virusses be considered as equal to murder? Time to show maffia hackers that we cannot allow the internet to be killed like this anymore.

I meant that.

Mine's the one with the kevlar coating, the gas mask, the fake cyanide tooth and the AK-47 as a means of discussing things.

[Joe Zeff]

Not my PC it won't!

Assuming I were foolish enough to look at a video like that on my PC, there'd be exactly 0% chance of it getting infected by malware. Isn't Linux great!

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

As a Linux user, I would like to formally apologise to the world for.. Linux users.

It used to be Volvo drivers.. before that, the White Star Line.

Between the unsinkable and the unthinkable, there were most certainly others. Uncrackable ciphers, unbendable bridges, unburnable horses - they all had their brief fling with public affection before receiving a rough rogering from reality. In the end they left nothing behind but their hubris writ large in ironic folklore.

So we laugh roundly at the unpolluting Prius and the unbreakable Oracle and the unhackable Linux - not in contempt of the ideals they embody, but in anticipation of the glorious pratfall that such a blatant set up must surely presage.

Anonymous Coward because, lets face it, i am a coward. Coat, because it is chilly up here in my ivory tower.

[Anonymous from Mars]

@Not my PC it won't!

Don't feed the troll, everyone.

[davebarnes]

More links please

And, the link to the fake news story would be?

I hate it when these types of articles (everyone panic now) have no links to the offending site.

Some of us would like to know if we are protected and haveno other way to test.

[Dave]

RE: Not my PC it won't!

Anyone could be mistake your reply as flamebaiting....now you wouldn't do such a thing? would you...?

[Player_16]

Linux might be great...

...but MY intelligence in better.

[Mark Aggleton]

@Joe Zeff

0% chance - typical Linuxboi. I'll agree that at the moment there is 'less' chance but malware still exists. When the 'new dawn' comes and 90% of the world run Linux, MS users will have the same juvenile attitide. http://www.linux.com/feature/128450

[Anonymous Coward]

@Joe Zeff

Ah, Good Ol' Security by Obscurity!

Won't last long with an attitude like that. It's just what the Apple Fanboys thought

[Alfazed]

There's always one

Linux idiot

ALF

[Anonymous Coward]

@Joe

Exactly! This sort of thing wouldn't happen on a Linux computer which is exactly why I only use Linux - it's so much better!

[Martin]

Look, I use Linux as well....

...but I'm not smug about it. One day soon, someone is going to produce a virus as successful as the I Love You one, targetted at Linux. And boy, will we look stupid.

[TeeCee]

@Player_16

".........but MY intelligence in better."

Which sort of proves it isn't, in itself. EPIC FAIL, new keyboard please.

[Andy Turner]

I've had loads of these lately

Fake news stories which are clearly spam. The spammers shoot themselves in the foot sometimes simply by overdoing it. One story on its own might seem feasible, but when you get a batch like the following, it all looks rather silly.

Nicole Kidman loses baby in miscarriage

JFK closed after bomb threat

Madonna admits to adultery

Britney in coma, feared dead

Amy Winehouse hospitalised for drug overdose

OK, so the last one is a lot more feasible...

[Nish]

What a load of codswallop

The only reason that 'it won't affect me coz i run linux' is because no one uses it. That is not an argument, I may as well say it won't affect my Atari ST. No one can be bothered writing any malware for linux because of the numbers that use it, not because it more secure than windows.

[Guy]

@Alfazed

Unfortuantely there's more than one.....

Please please please can we we have a dead penguin icon, or even a Hans Reiser one?

[Geoff Mackenzie]

I'll second that ...

... apology about Linux users. Having said that, in this case he's actually right - 0% chance of catching that particular example.

And risky as it may be to say so, I firmly believe that Linux just doesn't lend itself to a successful virus. Windows has always suffered from the deadly trinity: widespread monoculture, innately poor security and a large ill-informed chunk within its user base. Linux gains from Unix tradition on the security front (not perfect of course, nothing is, and many things (I'm thinking OpenBSD for example) are far harder), and as well as being less wide-spread it's less of a monoculture anyway with all the different configurations out there.

I would say it also has a better informed user base but ever since Ubuntu I'm starting to suspect it's creeping into the drooling sector (not a criticism of Ubuntu by the way; nice, clean distribution - it's just that beginning to crack the desktop market has some downsides).

[Anonymous Coward]

@ AC *sigh* - childish I know

"unburnable horses"

cant really get the context of horse burning to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Few of these popping up

Saw a similar one the other week claiming Muhammed Ali was dead...

Obviously I didn't open it as I didn't know the sender and checked the BBC in case it was true...

[Gianni Straniero]

@Andy Turner

I'm getting these as well. I was kindly informed that I had been "blacklisted" by the Mafia, that Jesus had destroyed Madonna's new house, and that JFK's memoirs revealed the identity of his lovechild (what, just one?). The body text contains some other story completely unrelated to the subject, so I'm mystified why anyone would click on the link. One born every minute, I suppose.

[Walter Brown]

Hey Mr. Fanboi!

I believe this article has your name all over it

http://stason.org/TULARC/os/linux.virus.html

mines the one with the picture of a diseased penguin and the caption that says "but but but... i'm immune!"

[Joe Zeff]

@Mark Aggleton

Exactly. Thank you for expanding on my point. Linux is not totally secure, it's just more secure than Windows. Some day the malware writers will decide that it's profitable to target Linux and things will change. For now, however, I'll enjoy my immunity to that sort of junque, TYVM.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Joe Zeff

If I read one more post like that by a *nix skid_mark_oid I swear I'll send the boys round.

Every dog has its day. Yours will come. Sure as you were born.