Malicious software has been found looking to Google Groups for instructions on how to behave badly.
Google (NSDQ:
GOOG)'s free online
newsgroup Google Groups hosts plenty of harmless user-generated content. But like any service that allows users to post information, it also turns out to be useful for "misuser-generated content."
A Symantec (NSDQ:
SYMC) security researcher has found that
Trojan malware is using
Google Groups to fetch commands for directing its attacks.
"A back door Trojan that we are calling Trojan.Grups has been using the Google Groups newsgroups to distribute commands," said Symantec security researcher Gavin O Gorman in
a blog post on Friday. "Trojan distribution via newsgroups is relatively common, but this is the first
instance of newsgroup [command and control] usage that Symantec has detected."
