It may come in an email asking you to check out a movie file. Or it may seek to push its way to your computer from malicious websites. In both cases a ‘codec’ will be offered in the guise of helping you watch a streaming video (a steamy one on many occasions), but instead of showing the movie it will install a stealthy Trojan Downloader in your computer. That’s Zlob Trojan for you!


Security experts at MicroWorld Technologies warn that a new Zlob variant named Zlob.fes is spreading among unsuspecting computer users. When a user visits certain websites, a harmful code named ‘Trojan.HTML.Agent.e’ is downloaded without the user’s knowledge. This file prompts an error message that says the browser has encountered an Active-X error and needs to download a codec to play a video file.

When a user clicks on ‘Yes’ button and proceeds to download the codec, a License Agreement is displayed to make him believe that the program is authentic. The name of the downloaded file is ‘VideoAccessCodecInstall.exe’, which in fact is Zlob.fes. Once inside the computer, Zlob.fes downloads many other kinds of malware.