W32.Deletemusic Worm Targets MP3 Files On PCs
We’d love to tell you that the RIAA paid a few select Black Hat programmers to cook up what we’re about to tell you, but there’s no way we can confirm this. Security experts have just discovered a worm, dubbed W32.Deletemusic, that deletes MP3 files on PCs it is able to infect.
The worm spreads via SneakerNet, removable flash drives, in an attempt by the creators to bypass e-mail and gateway filters that block malicious software, but also to clearly target users who share music.
W32.Deletemusic copies itself to all drives on a PC and creates an autorun file to start itself whenever a user accesses a drive. The worm affects PCs running Windows 2000, 95, 98, Me, NT, Server 2003, XP and Vista.
This is certainly not the first malware that targets MP3 files. Two years ago, researchers saw the Nopir-B worm, which posed as a utility to make copies of DVDs, and once infected, it deleted MP3 files and displayed an anti-piracy graphic. Last year, a Trojan horse program called Erazer hit computers worldwide, and did a Rambo on both audio and video programs on an infected hard drive. No Mac OS X viruses have been reported that target music or other media.
