By Dawn Kawamoto
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 26, 2006, 8:33 AM PDT

A new Trojan horse making the rounds has been installing itself as a Firefox extension, according to security company McAfee.

The FormSpy Trojan attacks computers that have already been infected with the Downloader-AXM Trojan, according to a security advisory McAfee issued Tuesday. Once FormSpy is executed, it installs itself as a component of the Firefox Web browser.

The FormSpy spyware then gleans sensitive information, such as credit card and bank account numbers, from the user's browser and forwards it to a malicious Web site. But this Trojan is capable of other tricks, as well, McAfee noted.

The main executable is also capable of sniffing passwords from traffic for ICQ (the "I seek you" program that alerts users to the presence of acquaintances online), FTP (file transfer protocol), IMAP (Internet message access protocol, an e-mail management program) and POP3 (post office protocol, a data format for e-mail), McAfee warned.

Although the FormSpy Trojan is circulating, it is considered a low risk, McAfee said. What's more, people may have already taken steps to mitigate the earlier Downloader-AXM Trojan that is needed for the FormSpy Trojan to take hold.

Source: //http://news.com.com/Trojan+piggybacks+on+Firefox/2100-7349_3-6098615.html

Firefox put out an update today. Assuming that will take care of it as well as always running a good firewall and anti-spyware.

I would hate to have to stop using firefox..Better check for the update thanks :D

ZDnet alerted me about the Trojan Horse and also alerted me that the fix is out and I got the update from Firefox automatically

I haven't had any alerts with McAfee. She'll be scanning all my computers on tuesday tuesday schedule. Is the update supposed to remove the Trojan or just stop Firefox from getting it tagged on?

While using Firefox a couple days ago I had it check for updates and there were no updates available. I thought that was strange.

I switched to Opera a couple of months ago..it renders pages faster as well as launches fast.

Good heads up mas521ca, these type of problems can be minimized with the auto update feature.
To activate, if not done already, Browser top line;
Go to Tools - Options - Advanced - Click on Update Tab
- check mark Firefix box under - Automatically check for updates to:
- activate Automatically download and install the update - under When updates to Firefox are found

Firefox will do the updates automatically, this should not slow down your activities, usually one does not even know it is updating until completion.

This is safe and will keep your browser uptodate to minimize problems such as described above.

Fire Fox take another new upate today 20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6