Dangerous Virtual World Out There: Wikipedia This Time Around

[HammerStone]

Article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...=NLT_WS&nlid=20
Malware writers have used a Wikipedia article and special storage features to attempt to plant malicious code on unsuspecting users' systems, the online encyclopedia's organizers have confirmed.The incident took advantage of Wikipedia's policy of openness, which allows anyone to create and modify articles. The attackers created a Wikipedia page that promised a Windows security update for a supposedly new version of the Lovesan/W32.Blaster worm and pointed to an external site with the seemingly authentic domain wikipedia-download.org.
The moral of the story here is to be careful. There are all sorts of abuses like this on the internet daily. The best advice I can give is when it comes to upgrading things, only use certified websites. Make sure that your antivirus and firewall software is up to date as well.

 

[MATTOB]

Use a mac :-D

 

[Jerusalem Junkie]

Thanks Denver I use that quite a bit will have to be more careful from here on out.

 

[tim_from_pa]

That's an old article, but the principle still applies. I NEVER believe any email or whatnot to "update" my computer. Rather, I go to them to find a program or update.I just don't understand this (Shaking head). Unless these malware writers live in another country, why can't their IP addresses be traced and/or the malicious web sites pulled? I know that these types are too cheap to host their own server so somebody has to be hosting this malicious software. They should pull the plug, no questions asked, no warnings, because I'm sure word gets out soon enough regarding bad software. As a matter of fact, the next suspected web site I find, I will look up those who host them and ask why this is not done,. and maybe imply that if I ever wanted hosting I will not go with them unless they are more diligent.The RIAA wants to sue kids and dead grandmothers for supposed illegal downloading based on IP address alone, and the lame-brained judicial system and dead-head jurors fall for this as well. If that's the case, wouldn't it be a stronger case and more logical if the originating IP address with the malware was found? I think that does FAR more damage to computers than a few stupid songs. In other words, chase the hackers and hijackers, not the kids and dead grandmothers, unless they want to admit their computer skills needed to find them are not up to par.