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Sunday, 27 February 2005 |
Kaz'aA Want a
Virus
antivirus.about.com -
USA
If I were a songstress, I'd sing laments over the loss of Napster, leaving us to
fend for MP3's in the darkest alleys of Cyberspace. As with any mirky part of
town, crime is rampant. In this case, the replacement distributed networks dish
up more than the coveted music files. LoveLetter, the MP3 killer, is making its
way up the music charts on KaZaA. Before you download "Loveletter in the Sand",
better make sure it's not "LoveLetter, Files Be Damned." Predictably, KaZaA's
terms of agreement indicate a hands-off approach to problems such as these,
leaving users to fend for themselves.
KaZaA is not the only such peer-to-peer file sharing network compromising users'
security. Gnutella and Morpheus use similar technology to allow thousands of
strangers to share files amongst the group. All participants in the network are
given the same rights to file sharing, a significant percentage of which may be
viruses and other forms of malware. In the case of the LoveLetter virus which
uses a double extension ruse, default settings in Microsoft® Windows makes the
virus appear to be a legitimate MP3 file to the inexperienced user. This
includes a friend of mine who regularly peruses KaZaA in search of elusive music
titles. As I pointed out to him, one bout with LoveLetter and he stands to lose
alot of his favorite media - including his prized DragonBallZ .JPG collection.
Nonplussed, he patiently explained that he thwarted the potential by using the
preview feature of KaZaA and by "starting to play" the file when 100Kb had been
downloaded. His belief was that the virus wouldn't play, he would know it was
not a valid MP3, and he could simply abort the download. The problem is that
LoveLetter is only about a tenth of that size, weighing in at approximately
10Kb, which means it will have downloaded to his system long before he gets to
test his theory.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 27 February 2005 )
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