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Trojan horse rides America Online

Virus continues to spread via hyperlink embedded in IM messages.

Dawn Kawamoto Former Staff writer, CNET News
Dawn Kawamoto covered enterprise security and financial news relating to technology for CNET News.
Dawn Kawamoto
A Trojan horse that targets America Online's instant messenger users continues to make the rounds, infecting machines of users who click on the hyperlink embedded in the message. Although and Symantec both characterize the threat as low, the Trojan, which goes by W32/Oscarbot, Backdoor.Doyorg and Backdoor.Win32.Agent.jn, is focusing on an area that has increasingly come under attack--instant messaging.

Once a user clicks on the link, the virus will resend to people listed on the user's buddy list and open a backdoor allowing the attacker to send commands to the user's computer.