Thoughts from The Geek Orbit Downloader for Windows Contains Malware If you are using the popular freeware Orbit Downloader application, you need to uninstall and remove it immediately. PC World has the details: Recent versions of Orbit Downloader, a popular Windows program for downloading embedded media content and other types of files from websites, turns computers into bots and uses them to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to security researchers. Starting with version 4.1.1.14 released in December, the Orbit Downloader program silently downloads and uses a DLL (Dynamic Link Library) component that has DDoS functionality, malware researchers from antivirus vendor ESET said Wednesday in a blog post. The rogue component is downloaded from a location on the program’s official website, orbitdownloader, the ESET researchers said. An encrypted configuration file containing a list of websites and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to serve as targets for attacks is downloaded from the same site, they said. If you’d like to read more about exactly what is going on, check out the blog posts linked below. • Researchers: Popular download management program has hidden DDoS component [PC World] • ESET reports trojan in Orbit Downloader [ZDNet] • Orbital Decay: the dark side of a popular file downloading tool [ESET] The lesson to be learned here is that you should be very careful what applications you use. Even freeware applications can contain stuff that you don’t realize is there, from spyware to actual malware. Your best bet is to always stick with open source software from reputable publishers.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 22:13:32 +0000