Like the Original Illness, New Typhoid Computer Virus to Cause Serious Damage

popupCan your computer be the source of infectious malware? Could you be infecting all the computers around you without even knowing it? Researchers say that this is exactly what might be happening with the Typhoid adware virus – with potentially serious consequences.

The virus infects your computer without any  signs of problems or infection. But when you connect to an unsecured network, such as at a coffee shop open network, the virus will activate and put adware on the other computers connected to the network.

“The person who has it on their computer doesn’t see the ads, doesn’t see any symptoms. It’s just all the people around them who get affected,” said John Aycock, an associate professor in the University of Calgary’s computer science department.

As of right now, this virus doesn’t seem so serious since it only displays unwanted ads on other people’s computers, but the scary part is that this virus can be programed to do far worse.

“Really ads are the tip of the iceberg in some ways. This exact same mechanism could be used to send malicious code to computers as opposed to just annoying advertisements,” said John Aycock.

By going public with the findings, professor John Aycock hopes the computer security industry will take a proactive approach and begin building Typhoid defenses into its anti-virus programs.

(Via Vancouver Sun)

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