JBELL
12-06-2002, 07:32 PM
A new breed of pop-up messages is proliferating that can evade ad-blocking programs and may indicate a security risk as well as present a nuisance.
Internet security monitoring firm myNetWatchman says it has seen a five-fold increase in the past month in Windows Messenger Service spam. In fact, the prevalence of such ads is worrying leading ISP America Online, so it has begun blocking the communications ports the Messenger Service uses in order to protect its members.
"It was a vulnerability, and we have blocked the port used to exploit that hole," says AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein.
Now, several companies have figured out a way to ship unsolicited ads in bulk to people through Windows Messenger Service. Through this conduit, the ad delivery services send short text messages to Windows PCs while they are connected to the Internet. It is yet another method of the practice of pushing digital promotions to an unsuspecting PC user.
full article here: (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1093&ncid=738&e=6&u=/pcworld/20021207/tc_pcworld/107754)
Pest or Worse?
"These pop-ups are really nothing more than annoyances," says Lawrence Baldwin, president and founder of myNetWatchman . But he warns that if your PC's security preferences are set low enough to accept the messages, then "it should serve as a (security) wake-up call and a good time to start evaluating the security of your machine."
Baldwin says the Windows Messenger Service software he's reviewed works by trolling the Internet and probing up to 200,000 PCs each hour. The programs are searching for systems with an open Messenger Service communication port so they can receive pop-ups. He warns that a malicious hacker can also use an open port as a back door to gain access to systems.
Internet security monitoring firm myNetWatchman says it has seen a five-fold increase in the past month in Windows Messenger Service spam. In fact, the prevalence of such ads is worrying leading ISP America Online, so it has begun blocking the communications ports the Messenger Service uses in order to protect its members.
"It was a vulnerability, and we have blocked the port used to exploit that hole," says AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein.
Now, several companies have figured out a way to ship unsolicited ads in bulk to people through Windows Messenger Service. Through this conduit, the ad delivery services send short text messages to Windows PCs while they are connected to the Internet. It is yet another method of the practice of pushing digital promotions to an unsuspecting PC user.
full article here: (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1093&ncid=738&e=6&u=/pcworld/20021207/tc_pcworld/107754)
Pest or Worse?
"These pop-ups are really nothing more than annoyances," says Lawrence Baldwin, president and founder of myNetWatchman . But he warns that if your PC's security preferences are set low enough to accept the messages, then "it should serve as a (security) wake-up call and a good time to start evaluating the security of your machine."
Baldwin says the Windows Messenger Service software he's reviewed works by trolling the Internet and probing up to 200,000 PCs each hour. The programs are searching for systems with an open Messenger Service communication port so they can receive pop-ups. He warns that a malicious hacker can also use an open port as a back door to gain access to systems.