Hackers Target QuickTime and WinZip

Although it seem unlikely virus writers and hackers are going to give up looking for and attempting to exploit loopholes in Microsoft products, it seems some of them may be turning their attention to other popular applications. According to security experts at Symantec the defences on one of its PC’s, used as bait to attract and trap virus writers, was breached through known vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime and WinZip.

These popular applications are installed on a very high proportion of PCs, and although the security holes have been known about for some time, it wasn’t thought they were being actively exploited. The attacks were carried out through dodgy websites, designed to resemble trusted bank and credit card sites. PC users are being lured onto them through links in Spam messages The sites were laced with a range of malicious hacking tools and unsuspecting. Patches and fixes for these problems are available and users are advised to make sure their software is kept up to date.