A group of security researchers discovered that spyware makers are using a flaw in the way the multimedia software loads graphical themes, or skins, to infect PCs with their wares.
The flaw is being used by some spyware makers to infect people’s computers with their illicit programs, according to another group of researchers, at French company K-Otik Security. The attack had been used to spread spyware among Internet relay chat users, infecting a computer after the victim clicked on a Web address that appeared in the chat window. “We received several reports from users who were hacked after clicking on a link distributed on several IRC (Internet relay chat) channels,” said Chaouki Bekrar, a consultant and co-founder of K-Otik. Clicking on the link infected the users’ computers and sent out additional instant messages, Bekrar said.
Source: c|net
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