Learn to protect yourself from the latest wave of Russian hackers!

Mega-store Circuit City was unwittingly distributing a virus for the past two weeks before it was discovered and cleaned up yesterday. Circuit City's Home Theater message boards were hacked and had been distributing a virus. It's a good excuse to have better taste in forums. The forum’s URL is part of forum.circuitcity.com and is not part of the greater www.circuitcity.com website. So if you’ve visited the regular Circuit City site lately, don’t worry.

Visitors of the message boards using an unpatched Internet Explorer browser were liable to have the virus installed on their PCs. The virus routed victims to a website out of Russia that installs a harmful back door on your computer. This opening gave hackers control over the Circuit City Forum user's computer that could be used to steal secure financial information from the user.

Only visitors with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that hadn't been updated with last January's patch were susceptible. This is a good reason to keep up with those Windows Updates. The .biz website where the virus was sending victims is hosted by a Russian Internet service provider. This website happens to be on the same block of IP Addresses as a serious Internet fraud attack earlier this year that hit thousands of computers worldwide.

The Washington Post reported on this infamous attack in March. It has been identified as among the most sophisticated cases of Internet fraud yet. This keylogger hack also exploited Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Victims of this scam were duped into clicking a link to a Russian website that let perpetrators record user’s keystrokes. This opens the door to a world of your secure information including credit card numbers and other sensitive data.

The method behind the hack was a clever one and worth filing away for your personal rip-off detector. A victim name Graeme Frost in England received an email summarizing a digital camera purchase with his credit card. A link within the email was specifically for disputing the bill. Now is when the red flag should go up! Graeme clicked it and was taken to a web page that installed the password stealing program that transmitted personal and financial information that presumably he typed in himself trying to get to the bottom of the purchase. The keylogger logs his keystrokes and the hackers make off with the loot.

Dasvidanya!

Edit June 4th:  I understand that some who use CircuitCity forums and shop at the store might have taken offense to the remark that they have bad taste in forums. It's not my intention to offend anyone using a forum to learn more about electronics or to rave about an exciting product they bought at CC. There are lots of valid reasons for using a forum.

But I consider a forum to be a place for unbiased advice which a forum run by Circuit City would not be. CC forums are an infomercial for its products and services. Far better to use one of the many quality forums out there populated by real HT enthusiasts including forums at www.audioholics.com, www.avsforum.com , www.avforums.com and www.hometheatershack.com

Circuit City might be a great place to buy gear with a big selection and good products. People who frequent the CC Forums would seem to me to be the kind of people who like to watch Cher in a lab coat talking about skin care products. I could be wrong, as always it's just my opinion.