In what has been called as the “Largest fake media file outbreak” in three years, nearly half a million people have fallen victim to a phony video or music track that has been packaged to look as an innocent MP3 file. Once the free track is downloaded, a required codec is prompted for and downloading it sends in tons of popups as the attached Trojan takes hold and kicks into action. This is as sample of how gullible people with little or no knowledge in computer security end up falling victims of such attacks that have files packaged as a legal format that is actually a malicious program in disguise. The article was posted in the BBC and the good news is that of the almost half a million infected people who have been victimized, only 10 percent actually installed the malware and ended-up with the pesky pop-up’s plaguing them as they try to get rid of all traces of the Trojan.
There is however an increasing problem with such types of attacks for they may encompass the wide variety of media files that are currently being used by people around the globe. Some of these files have been around from quite sometime such as MP3’s which have been one of the major reasons why digital music became a mainstay of music we enjoy today. They can be packaged as MP3’s, AVI’s or many other formats which do not have encoded security features included with the file. Updated Anti-virus software should deal with the problem easily but unprotected systems face a lot of annoying pop-up’s and other malware as the so-called coded that you download contains a variety of malware.