Half a million infected computers since the beginning of May has prompted McAfee to declare the latest Trojan threat the most significant malware threat in three years.
A malicious MPEG or MP3 file which has been propagated through popular file-sharing sites has inflicted major damage.
"This is one of the most prevalent pieces of malware in the last three years," said Craig Schmugar, threat researcher at McAfee Avert Labs. "We have never before had a threat this significant that arrives as a media file."
Medium panic
The Trojan has been denoted as a ‘medium’ threat that doesn’t sound like cause for concern but it is the first malware to be given this high a threat level since 2005.
Cyber-criminals have used different file sizes, different languages and different formats to fool people into running the software, and any attempt to play the file will result in ads being served to the infected computer.
McAfee Labs say that the following filenames have been used: "preview-t-3545425-adult.mpg" ; "preview-t-3545425-changing times earth wind .mp3" ; "preview-t-3545425-girls aloud st trinnians.mp3" ; "preview-t-3545425-jij bent zo jeroen van den.mp3" ; "t-3545425-lion king portugues.mpg" and "t-3545425-los padres de ella.mpg"
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tashfeen
May 12th 2008
2. @glen m.: Agreed, I'm also pondering the same thing.
Well, McAfee isn't the best antivirus out there anymore (here's my take: http://avscan.blogspot.com/search/label/McAfee), so I'm hardly surprised they're jumping around (most likely) to make the headlines.
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beerspeaker1
May 10th 2008
1. can someone please explain HOW playing an mp3 or mpeg file can infect a computer? if it doesn't have an executable extension, then how is it being executed? i'm not saying that it is impossible, i'm just curious since that would be such a MASSIVE security risk.
~~glen m.
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