Symantec says a new Trojan taps Google Groups to to distribute commands.
Symantec has discovered a new Trojan that is making use of Google Groups to to distribute commands. Symantec is calling this malware Trojan.Grups. While Trojan writers routinely use newsgroups to infect machines, this is the first time that Syamntec has ever seen them use Google Groups for “command and control” malware.
According to a report by IDG News Service
These “command and control” instructions are used by criminals to keep in touch with hacked PCs and update their malicious software. Researchers have also seen criminals hide their messages in RSS feeds that are set up to broadcast Twitter messages, said Gerry Egan, a director with Symantec Security Response. “We’re seeing a trend toward using more mainstream social media-type interactions to hide command and control,” he said.
“The Trojan itself is quite simple. It is distributed as a DLL, and when executed will log onto a specific account,” the Symantec blog post describes.
For now, Symantec discovered the C&C Trojan located only in one place, a private newsgroup called escape2sun. But Symantec believes the Trojan was a prototype and that we can expect to see more C&C Trojans show up in other newsgroup sites as well as other types of file-sharing social media sites.
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