Trojan Turns PCs Into Zombies, Hackers Use SMS

Security vendor Websense has warned Internet users that hackers are now using SMS spam on mobile phones to trick people into visiting a spurious website. The hackers send text messages to people’s cell phones, on the pretext of thanking them for subscribing to a dating service. The message states that they will be automatically charged $2.00 per day via their phone bill, unless their subscription is cancelled online. Once the bewildered victim opens the ‘dating site’ to unsubscribe, he/she is prompted to download a Trojan program with instructions on how to bypass security warnings on IE. The Trojan, nicknamed ‘Dumador’ by Websense, once installed, supposedly turns the PC into a ‘zombie’, which can be remotely controlled by the hackers. The Trojan allows hackers to use HTTP, instead of the popular Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to upload information from the zombie computers. Although Websense could not give a definite figure of persons affected by the Dumador, they suspect quite a number since the text messages have been circulating in the US since Thursday.