JPEG worm

[Snowman]

Hi all, I saw this and though I give everybody a heads up.

Does this mean ya can be infected by opening a JPEG image??

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-935766.html

[dicki]

it's not really a jpeg worm... i dodn't read that zdnet article but i've seen this in the security groups i check...

basically for this "worm" to work you need to download and run an executable which installs the actuall virus software on your computer. this adds a line in the registry that calls the virus software whenever a file with the extension *.jpg or *.jpeg is run.

the file then tacks a code onto the end of the jpeg file and if the file is sent to another machine with the virus software on it the software will see the infected file and presumably do something with the information

there is no way a jpeg file can infect your computer on it's own as there is no executable code in it... the bigger worry is people using double extensions and stuff so fooling people into running exe's when they thing they are running jpegs e.g. *.exe.jpg

dicki