When Manga Windows Screen Savers Attack on Peer-to-Peer Networks

There is a new threat lurking in the muddy waters of Peer-to-Peer networks. A security threat that masquerades as a Windows screen saver file. In this regard, Symantec has issued a public warning advising that a Japanese Trojan dubbed Trojan.Pirlames, is spreading through file-sharing networks. P2P networks have long been one of the main avenues for attacks, so what makes this Trojan stand out from the crowd?

Trojan.Pirlames is a Trojan horse created via the P2P-Destroyer Pro hacktool and is directed exclusively at users of P2P networks. It affects a variety of Windows platforms with the exception of Windows Vista. ��At the end of the day, downloading copyrighted files, songs, videos, etc. from file-sharing sources is not always cost-free. In this case, there is a price to pay, and some will pay dearly,�� revealed Hon Lau, Symantec Sr. Security Response Engineer.

Symantec has associated the following name with the attacks: ��Master of epic the animation age OP��+ Miracle Episode I (MP3 128kbps ⌠-⌠T��W������P��b��g��t).zip[MANY SPACE CHARACTERS].SCR��

The Cupertino based security company revealed that, once on a compromised machine, Trojan.Pirlames will begin searching for files to overwrite. The users will say Sayonara to files with no extensions and to those with the .txt, .jpg and .zip extensions. The content of all these files will be replaced with a Manga inspired image.

��The impression we get from this Trojan is that it aims to put fear into people. The messages displayed and in the affected files are full of threats, and appear as though the users' activities are being monitored, perhaps by another person remotely. This is not the case, as we have discovered,�� Hon Lau added.