Trojan Attacks Japanese File-Sharing Networks

While the battle to maintain the safety of the Internet is on, related laws especially of copyright issues frequently become subject of battle.

In a particular instance where a malware supplier attacks pirate file-sharers, Sophos, the security vendor has raised alarm of a Trojan horse that is being spread on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks of Japanese firms.

The Trojan called Troj/Pirlames-A has been spread on the disputed Winny file-sharing network in the land of the rising sun. The Trojan horse disguises as a screensaver. If P2P users download and execute the program, it will overwrite the stored files by a popular cartoon star. The comic character, however, exploits the PC owners for using Winny. This malware is not the lone piece to have taken advantage of the file-sharing network featuring Winny.

Miscreants who generate and distribute worms and viruses aren't considered as faithful guardians of fair and just practices, but the Trojan, which has emerged in Japan imply that the creators have certain extent of morality motivating their actions.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos commented that the particular Trojan horse is one of the most fantastic items of malware they had seen in their labs for a long time. But the malware's ability to destroy data is no less serious. Webusers published Cluley's observations on March 1, 2007.

The Troj/Pirlames-A targets programs, music files and mailboxes. The pictures of a comic book star named Ayu Tsukimiya in the malicious code overwrites all INI, BAT, CMD, EXE, PHP, HTM, ASP, HTML, JAVA, DBX, CLASS, EML, TBB, MBX, TXT, WAB, HLP, XLS, MP3, LOG, BMP files, Sophos warned.

The image-based malware has an accompanying message that describes it a visit from the existing Piro virus. It orders to stop P2P, otherwise it would inform the police.

A Japanese court proved Isamu Kaneko, the creator of the Winny file-sharing program, guilty in December 2006 for helping to violate copyright. There were extensive debates on the Internet about the rights and wrongs of the case. The dilemma of the Trojan creator's tactics asks whether it is all right to pounce on law-breakers in such a manner.

Related article: Trojans to Target VoIP in 2006

» SPAMfighter News - 3/16/2007