Beware of a trick that takes advantage of Google Wave

Security firm Symantec warns evildoers are taking advantage of Google Wave, a new online tool for meeting and communicating in real time, to trap Net users.

Symantec warned someone who took advantage of Google Wave to trick Internet users

Symantec Security Response (Symantec Security Response) has discovered a trick campaign for people who want to join the Google Wave community by promising not only to offer a Google Wave invitation creation software, but also can get rich by selling these invitations to others who also want to join Google Wave. In fact, this promising application is part of the malicious code.

Scammers draw attention to their latest phishing tool by automatically posting the following posts on forums:

Examples of spam messages on a forum

The topic on this forum of course has nothing to do with the Google Wave invitation. The text contained in the box contains the code that shows the fake file called googlewaveinvitegenerator.exe, which is a malicious code behind Backdoor.Tidserv.

As soon as scammers have finished spreading this information, the next phase will trick the victim into downloading and installing this malicious code:

Ask the user to download or not

The promise of the Google Wave invitation, plus making a lot of money selling lots of invitations, is a lure to try and trick users into using this software. Figure 2b also shows a small Twitter blog used to spread their malicious code.

The Twitter page distributed this malicious code

When a user traps this trick and follows the link they see on the site like below, then they can download the invitation generator:

Download malicious code

In this case, only Google Wave is chosen as the bait because of its current popularity. Using such famous brands will increase the likelihood of success for attackers. This technique is frequently used by cyber criminals and users should not be caught off guard - if something is too good to be fake, it is actually bad.

Symantec customers who have updated the latest virus definitions will be protected from this attack. And Symantec experts also give advice to individual users:

- Be careful what you click. Stay alert before clicking on links of anonymous senders.

- Only download applications from trusted sources. In this case, the official Google Wave website has a page for users to submit requests for invitations.

- Deploy protection measures: Equip yourself with an updated and effective security software to detect and prevent the download of these malicious codes. Norton 2010 products have the ability to proactively protect the system against spyware, viruses, worms, hackers and botnets (ghost computer networks), and other security risks.