Wednesday, January 26, 2005
download.com let something malicious through
A couple of million people downloaded a file sharing program called "Direct Connect" from download.com. Little did they know that for over a week starting January 16 download.com had been offering up an infected copy.
People who used download.com to get their copy of Direct Connect also got a ton of spyware installed along with the program.
I'd heard rumors that download.com wasn't adequately checking whether their content was clean. This is the first hard fact I'd run into.
What to do? Well, you now have one more thing to be aware of as you walk the wild streets of the Internet. You have to be sure a program you're downloading is trustworthy and you have to be sure you can trust the site you're downloading from. A big name is no guarantee.
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People who used download.com to get their copy of Direct Connect also got a ton of spyware installed along with the program.
I'd heard rumors that download.com wasn't adequately checking whether their content was clean. This is the first hard fact I'd run into.
What to do? Well, you now have one more thing to be aware of as you walk the wild streets of the Internet. You have to be sure a program you're downloading is trustworthy and you have to be sure you can trust the site you're downloading from. A big name is no guarantee.
# posted by Frederick @ 8:35 PM Email to a friend:
Haloscan: they provide trackback