A Japanese student has been suspected of embedding a computer virus in an image in an animated film before illegally distributing it online. Masato Nakatsuji has now been found guilty of copyright infringement and has received a suspended prison sentence.

Mr Nakatsuji allegedly embedded the Harada virus into the film, which is one of the most common viruses found in Japan. Japan has been slow to implement legislation that cracks down on cyber-crime, the Guardian reports. Mr Nakatsuji was the first case of a person being arrested in connection with making or spreading a virus.

In related news, around half a million web users were caught out this month by a Trojan disguised as a media file.
The Trojan could lead to a computer's security being compromised and was typically disguised as a music video or track. Security specialist McAfee said that it was one of the largest outbreaks for three years.

Posted by Annette King in Virus & AntiVirus News at 16:26

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Posted by Greg Hewitt-Long in Buying NOD32 at 15:46

Bogus movie and song files used to spread malware.

Attackers are using fake MP3 files to launch one of the largest malware attacks in recent years, experts warned today.

The social engineering attacks purport to offer MP3 files or Mpeg movie files.

On downloading and launching the file, the user is prompted to launch an executable called 'play_mp3.exe' which installs adware.

Instead of a movie or song, the user gets a pair of adware tools for the Firefox web browser. If the user does not have Firefox installed, an error message asks the user to install the software.

McAfee researcher Craig Schmugar explained that the fake files have been traced to the fastmp3player.com domain. McAfee has detected the attacks on more than 360,000 machines, including more than 120,000 in the past 24 hours.

"This is one of the most prevalent pieces of malware in the past three years, " he said. "We have never had a threat this significant that arrives as a media file."

The malware launches a multimedia tool which Schmugar described as "simply a browser control wrapped in an executable".

"In the end you are left with a fake MP3 file taking up space, a worthless MP3 player, and adware that displays popup and pop-under ads," he said.

Posted by Annette King in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 12:59