Illegal Parking Triggers A New Virus Attack!

Got this warning when I updated A-Squared Anti Virus

Illegal parking triggers a new virus attack!

Emsi Software, provider of the a-squared Anti-Malware 4.0 protection software, warns of a new type of virus attack that, up to now, has only been used in the USA. In this case, after returning from shopping, drivers find a parking ticket on their windscreen. The drivers are then supposed to fetch the details of the illegal parking, and the penalties incurred, from a particular website. Drivers who actually follow the printed link are then promptly attacked and receive new Malware on their PCs.

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Parking ticket with malware link

Salzburg, February 2009 - Many visitors at a shopping mall in Grand Forks (ND), USA, were astounded as they returned fully loaded with shopping bags to their cars. A parking ticket was placed under their windscreen wipers. Written on the ticket was:

"PARKING VIOLATION This vehicle is in violation of standard parking regulations. To view pictures with information about your parking preferences, go to website xxx."

This gave the following impression: The car was illegally parked. The driver was then supposed to use the Internet to visit a specific website and obtain a photo of the parking violation and more information on the penalties.

At the specified website, the visitors could see photos of other parking violators but not themselves. To find their own photo, they were asked to download and install a "picture search" toolbar. However, this invisibly installed a Malware DLL in the system that functioned as an Internet Explorer Browser Helper Object (BHO). This connection was then used to download another DLL, already identifiable as Malware. This was then also installed as a BHO and, after a while, opened a popup window containing a bogus security warning. This attempted to motivate the user to install a so-called rogue anti-Spyware scanner, which is actually a bogus protection program that makes further Malware modifications to the system.

A-Squared