Posted by Virus Bulletin on Feb 28, 2007
Illegal Japanese file-sharers warned off by anime character malware.
A series of trojans have been spotted targeting users of popular Japanese file-sharing system Winny. The trojans replace files with a series of image files, which contain pictures of Japanese anime characters and text instructing users to cease illegal file-sharing, threatening them with police involvement or even death.
The cartoons feature several popular characters from Japanese anime, and carry whimsical messages urging avoidance of the Winny system, which has been subject of copyright infringement law suits in Japan, including several threats to report users to the authorities. A recent conviction upheld against its creator is mentioned in one of the cartoons. One of them also contains a phone number, as yet unidentified.
'These cartoons may look cute, but the trojan can do some nasty damage,' said John Hawes, Technical Consultant at Virus Bulletin. 'The warnings about the illegal nature of some file-sharing systems may be public-spirited, but the way in which it is being spread most certainly isn't.'
The trojan, dubbed 'Pirlames' in some quarters, replaces files with a wide range of extensions, and is made available for sharing over the system disguised as a screensaver. More detail and screeenshots of some of the cartoons dropped can be found at Sophos, here.
Posted on 28 February 2007 by Virus Bulletin
