Microsoft security fix clobbers 2 million password stealers

by Robert McMillan

June 20, 2008 —

Microsoft's June security updates were bad news for online criminals who make their living stealing password information from online gamers.

The company's Malicious Software Removal Tool -- a program that detects and removes viruses and other bad programs from Windows machines -- removed game password-stealing software from more than 2 million PCs in the first week after it was updated to detect these programs on June 10.

One password stealer, called Taterf,
was detected on 700,000 computers in the first day after the update. That's
twice as many infections as were spotted during the entire month after Microsoft
began detecting the notorious Storm Worm malware last September.

"These are ridiculous numbers of infections my friends, absolutely mind-boggling,"
wrote Matt McCormack, a spokesman with Microsoft's Malware Response Center,
in a Friday
blog posting.

Between June 10 and June 17, Microsoft removed Taterf from about 1.3 million
machines, he said.

Microsoft's September detections seriously hobbled the Storm Worm botnet, once
considered a top Internet threat.

Password stealers such as Taterf are among the most common types of malicious
software on the Internet. That's because there's big money to be made selling
the virtual currencies used in online games for real-world cash.

Once a criminal learns a gamer's username and password, he can log into the
game and sell the victim's virtual possessions for virtual gold coins. Those
coins are then handed to another character in the game who sells the gold for
real-world dollars at an online exchange such as IGE, said Greg Hoglund, CEO
of HBGary and a co-author of the book "Exploiting
Online Games."

"There's no way to audit that money transfer, so effectively they're doing
money laundering," he said. "There's almost zero risk for the attackers."

The password-stealing programs are often installed via Web-based attack code
that exploits flaws in multimedia programs such as Adobe's Flash Player or Apple's
QuickTime Player, Hoglund said.

The attacks are often technically sophisticated, exploiting previously undisclosed
bugs in Windows software, said Roger Thompson, chief research officer with AVG
Technologies. "The 'World of Warcraft' password stealers have provided
most of the innovation over the last twelve months," he said via instant
message.

Microsoft's McCormack provided some data on where most of the password stealer
detections occurred. Not surprisingly, China was the top country, with 529,003
detections.

Security experts say Chinese games are frequently the target of these attacks.
Rounding out the top five countries for detections were Taiwan with 279,428,
Spain with 235,381, the U.S. with 213,374 and Korea with 184,306.

About 330 million copies of the Malicious Software Removal Tool update were
downloaded during this June period.

Gamers can make easy targets for criminals because some of them disable antivirus
software to boost gaming performance, while others download free "cracked"
versions of games, which can contain malware, McCormack said.

"So how does one avoid being infected?" he asked. "Running an
up-to-date anti-virus solution is a good start. Running an up-to-date, patched
browser is another necessity," he said. "Enabling Automatic Updates
helps a whole bunch, too."

IDG News Service