Malware: Fighting Malicious Code

Trojaning Software Distribution Sites

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

—Genesis 3:13

So, we've seen how attackers use name trickery and wrapper programs to create and disguise their backdoors. Now, let's discuss a far nastier Trojan horse technique that is greatly increasing in popularity: Trojaning software distribution sites. Increasingly, some attackers are aiming beyond the individual software loaded on your system, and going upstream by attacking the Internet sites used to distribute software. What better way could there be to get widespread dispersal of malicious code than to put a Trojan horse version of a popular program on a Web site used by millions of people around the world? Everyone who downloads and installs ...