Malware Targets Blind Surfers

January 18, 2008 Web User

Jaws A piece of malware that targets blind and partially-sighted surfers has been discovered in the wild.

According to Vanja Svajcer of Sophos, several blind surfers had posted messages on web forums saying that their PCs had been out of action since Christmas.

"The computers were rendered unusable because the software used to read the screen text and convert it to speech suddenly stopped working. An interesting thing was that not all users were using the same screen reader software," Svajcer wrote on the Sophos security blog.

The culprit, according to Svajcer, was a fake 'crack' for JAWS 9.0 screen-reader software, which was actually a Trojan that targeted the JAWS software and other popular screen-reader programs.

It became apparent on closer analysis in Sophos' labs that the author of the Trojan was no beginner.

"The attention to detail and the programming style implies that the attacker was skilled, possibly a professional programmer," wrote Svajcer.

Sophos said it was quite difficult to remove from an infected system, but recommended that you install an anti-virus program that is capable of removing it, adding that Sophos' Anti-Virus 7 had been updated to detect and remove it.

The fact that the Trojan had been hidden inside what was said to be a 'crack' for JAWS screen-reader software, which claimed to enable surfers to use unlicenced copies of JAWS, suggests that the author may have been attempting to punish those using the software illegally.

"The attack does not seem to be financially motivated, although one may think that the intention was to punish people using illegal copies of JAWS software," said Svajcer.

Reproduced from http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/174689.html.

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