BKAV, a well
known Internet security solution provider in Vietnam, has warned that it has
found a sharp increase in the number of spam emails; which, assuming the names
of famous express delivery companies in the world such as DHL and Post Express,
were sent to email users in Vietnam in April.

According
to BKAV, the emails sent to Vietnamese email users under the false names had
similar content: “The parcel sent to your home address. And it will arrive
within 3 business days. More information and the tracking number are attached
in the document below”.

BKAV’s
experts say that if decompressing the attached file, users will see the files
with the suffix “.doc” or “.pdf”. In fact, these are the malicious codes hidden
under the icons of file “.doc” or “.pdf”. Meanwhile, it is difficult to
recognize that these are malicious codes.

Vu Ngoc
Son, Research and Development (R&D) Director of BKAV, said that most
computers have been put at the default mode which does not show file extension.
Moreover, the icons make people think that these are normal documents.
Therefore, email users can be easily fooled.

The latest
report by BKAV shows that at least 7500 computers in Vietnam have been infected with the
“express service” virus. When the virus is activated, it will hold the control
over computers, blackmail or turn the infected computers into the tools which
send spam to other computers.

BKAV has
advised computer users to set up the computers under the mode which allows showing
the file extension, in order to easily recognize malicious codes. It has also
said that it would be better to set up copyrighted antivirus software.

Windows 7 could be attacked

Since the
day of launching, Windows 7 has shown its outstanding capability in terms of
security in comparison with “Windows XP”, the “brother”. Microsoft is believed
to install advanced security technologies in order to improve the protection
ability. Therefore, though some people think that Windows 7 could also be
attacked through its holes, there have been no experiments to prove the thing.

However,
BKAV’s experts recently have carried out experiments and have come to a
conclusion that hackers can attack Windows 7 to exploit the holes and hijack
the system. As such, with Windows 7, the security risk still exists.

“Though it
is safer with Windows 7 than Windows XP, you still need to follow basic
principles in security. You should not run the software if you do not know
about their origins, and you should not access to unfamiliar websites,” said
Nguyen Minh Duc, Internet Security Director of BKAV.

“Whether
your computer is safe would much depend on you. Technologies or operation
system cannot replace people,” he added.

BKAV has
also suggested that computer users should regularly update the error fixing
versions of the operation systems, as well as the software applications
installed on computers. Especially, computer users should use licensed
anti-virus software.

According
to BKAV, at least 182 websites of agencies and enterprises in Vietnam were
hacked in April. Of these, six cases were caused by domestic hackers, while
foreign hackers attacked in the other 176 cases.

In April,
BKAV detected 3324 new computer virus lines which appeared in Vietnam. The
viruses were infected to 5,871,000 computers. The kind of virus which was
spread to most of computers was W32.AutoRunUSB.Worm with 310,000 computers
reportedly infected.

Source: Buu dien