Trojan horses come along with patriottic symbols

The Doctor via WikipediaThe Dark Visitor signals a nasty trend among Chinese hackers for using the running emotions among netizens in China like Tibet, the Olympics and the Sichuan earthquake to sneak Trojan horses with the related online symbols.

According to an article in tech.ccidnet.com, hackers are using recent events and the patriotism they have inspired to spread a new trojan called, “Red Heart Robber.” The snatching of the Olympic torch, the CNN incident, and earthquake in Sichuan have caused the Chinese online community to attach red hearts with the Chinese flag (and other variations) to their QQ sig and webpages to show support/sympathy for China. When normal online users download the image of the red heart flag to show their support for China, a nasty little trojan is attached.

As you might remember, I recently removed successfully 22 Trojan horses from my laptop. Never thought I could have that many horses. Some people asked me how I did it, so here is again the receipt. I used PC Tools' Spyware doctor. But make sure you do not used the edition of PC Tools. That will offer you a free scan, but expects you to pay for the additional cleaning up tool. I have downloaded the full set for free from the Google Updater, a nice little gadget that offers more free downloads and updates - if you are prepared to give yet another part of you online life to Google.