Simon Willison’s Weblog

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Friday, 27th February 2004

Crap marketing sites

i-am-asian.com is McDonald’s excruciating “I’m lovin’ it” site targeted at Asian Pacific Islander Americans. With gems like whether we’re sipping green tea or enjoying a Big Mac sandwich, we’re helping make the magic mix called America become even richer you can’t go wrong. Meanwhile, the infamous beef industry sponsored cool-2b-real has rebranded itself as “zip 4 tweens”—for “tween” kids—not quite teens but definitely not children! Where’s the raging platypus when you need him?

Mod_python’s PSP: Python Server Pages. Grisha spills the beans for ONLamp.

# 8:45 pm

Bizex

I’m going to try not to turn this in to a blog about Windows security exploits but this one is genuinely interesting in that it actively tries to steal financial information and important passwords. Bizex spreads itself by spamming messages over ICQ advising the recipient to visit a specific URL. When they visit it, Internet Explorer exploits are used to download and execute the main payload which then infects their ICQ program and uses it to message their contacts. The worm also scans their hard drive for information relating to a number of well known financial services which it then uploads to a server via FTP, and it apparently snoops on their browser for any passwords travelling over HTTPS connections as well.

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2004 » February

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