The World of Computing and Solutions

SYMANTEC REPORTED RECENTLY ON A Tojan horse that mimics the Microsoft I Windows activation interface. Called trojan.Kardphisher, it doesn’t do most of the technical things that Trojans usually do: It’s purely a social-engineering attack, aimed at stealing credit card information.

In a sense, it’s a standalone phishing program. Once you reboot, Kardphisher asks you to reactivate your copy of Windows, citing piracy issues at and telling you that another user has activated your copy. Though it assures you that you will not actually be charged, it asks for credit card information. If you don’t enter the credit card information, Kardphisher shuts down the PC.

The Trojan also disables the Windows Task Manager, which makes it more difficult to shut the malware down.

Running on the first reboot is clever. It makes the process look more like a legitimate message coming from Microsoft, and it won’t seem to occur as a result of the user clicking on a new file. The program even runs on versions of Windows that were made prior to XP and do not require activation. That’s a bit of a red flag, although I bet there’s a strong correlation between people running pre-XP versions of Windows and people who aren’t as well educated about malware as they could be.

With a nearly 1MB executable. Kardphisher is not a sneak attack. But if you find yourself infected, disable the Trojan in Windows Safe mode by removing the Registry keys described in Symantec’s write up (at www.symantec.com. search on the malware name) and deleting the program they point to. Updated anti-virus software should also remove it.

Question
With all the current emphasis on new worms, Trojan horses, viruses, and other malware, I have a quesion about Microsoft Outlook Express. I’ve shut off the preview pane to prevent someone from owning my PC, but evey time I’m purposely viewing my e-mail and elect to delete it, the next message in my queue opens up. I really want the application to go back to the inbox view. I haven’t a clue how to do that, nor have I found anything in the Help file. Any idea how I can make that happen? My Windows XP is fully upto date.

Answer
By turning off the preview pane and deleteing the suspect mail without opening it, you greately reduce the possibility that an HTML-based message could exploit some security flaw and compromise your system. You also foil any attempts to snag private information that’s sorted in the Web browser cookies using a “web bug” image.
It’s true that when you delete the current message, the next message in the queue will take its place. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution: Scan your list of messages starting at the bottom. Delete any that don’t look right and read the ones from your known correspondents. If you delete the last message in the list, you’ll go back to the Inbox view, as requested. And if the mesage you deleted is not the last, the one that takes its place will be one that you’ve already approved, since you’re working up from the bottom.