Downloading from the Internet? Beware of fake media files!

Dear friends and clients,

Almost 500,000 people have been caught out by a booby-trapped media file hosted on popular file-sharing networks. The fake file poses as a music track, short video or movie and has been widely seeded on file-sharing networks to snare victims.

Those running the fake file get bombarded with pop-up ads and risk compromising the safety of their PC.

The fake file or trojan has been widely distributed on the eDonkey and Limewire file-sharing networks.

It has many names and is written in different languages to trick people into downloading it.

The titles make the file appear to be music tracks, pornography and full versions of popular movies.

Anyone downloading the trojan and trying to run it is asked to install a codec that will play the supposed media.

Instead of playing the media, running the file installs a bundle of adware that plagues a user with pop-ups.

Included in the bundle is an MP3 media player that will only play the tracks included with it.

Such a large outbreak is rare because hi-tech criminals typically prefer to target their malicious creations to keep numbers manageable and to avoid detection. However in the last seven days the trojan has been found on more than 500,000 of the PCs that notify Antivirus companies when a malicious file is downloaded.

Adware attacks such as this are notoriously difficult to remove completely and can expose PC’s to infiltration, key-logging and interception of data, as well as exposing other computers via the infected PC’s address list. Sometimes the only sign of infection can be a dramatic slowing down of normal PC functions, often rendering the infected machine practically useless.

Such attacks are often missed by standard Antivirus software, especially if it is not kept updated.

All our users are advised to update their security software and to be wary when using file-sharing networks.