The Backdoor Trap

Posted by Michelle Petit-Sumrall as Computing, security

My other blog got spammed the other day.

More specifically, a website I visited attempted to install a backdoor on my system, and from there it created a pingback to my blog which, if clicked, would have sent any visitor’s computer a trojan. Nice, huh?

Fortunately for me, my system’s security is nearly as good as Fort Knox. Unfortunately, it’s only weakness is me, the user. When my firewall told me a program was trying to act like a server, allowing inbound traffic, I hesitated. I recognized the name of the software as something my computer is always using, but I couldn’t remember it ever having tried to act like a server before. Nonetheless, confident that even if it was something malicious I could probably recover, I allowed the action to continue.

BIG mistake.

Immediately my computer became sluggish. My browser wasn’t going anywhere. I immediately launched Process Explorer and had it do the ol’ shutdown. Once I rebooted, all kinds of alarm bells went off. F-Secure warned me it had renamed a file that had a trojan attached to it. My blog’s dashboard showed a spam comment, which turned out to lead to a bogus site that kept trying to install the same darn trojan. Needless to say, I deleted that spam comment.

All that to say this: be careful out there! Keep your systems protected! I use the following software to keep my computer safe:

• F-Secure (Offered free with my ISP, Charter)
• Spybot Search & Destroy (A free download. I have it run once a week while I’m at work)
• WinPatrol (Scotty the dog is always on patrol! You just have to visit the site…)
• Firefox (The safer, customizable browser)

What do you use?

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