A US TELEVISION station has had to back down on claims that P2P software will fill your computer with viruses.7News reported how during its ‘exclusive’ test it downloaded Limeware software only to find it contained password cracking software.

. Our report miffed INQ reader Dominic Webb who contacted the 7News hack, Tony Kovaleski, and called him out on his claim.

Sure enough, after a bit more digging it turned out the TV hack had got it all wrong and confirmed that Limewire did not include any password cracking software.

“The error in my findings was the result of a unique license file downloaded by the installation of LimeWire on our computer. This license file is not a threat to a computer, Kovaleski said.

It turned out that his malware detector had triggered on a unique GNU license downloaded by LimeWire to 7News’ computer. This licence had a “digital fingerprint” (SHA-1 hash) which was associated with only one application in a database of thousands of software products which turned out to he an older version of a password cracker.

Limewire installed this unique license file on 7New’s system. Kovaleski established that it was this license which triggered the alert, not the installation of the actual application pwl9x.

Security watchers have discovered a Trojan that’s designed to steal user names and passwords from World of Warcraft players.

Wowcraft, which also attempts to disable security software packages on compromised PCs, has been planted on maliciously constructed websites. Unprotected Windows users visiting these sites can get infected through malicious browser pop-ups. The malware also spreads through infectious email attachments or as files downloaded from P2P networks.

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Just when you thought you’d seen everything P2P is useful for. A recently discovered Internet worm, “Nugache-A” is spreading widely via AIM as ell as MSN Messenger.

In and of themselves, new internet worms pop up too frequently to be news anymore. What is significant about this worm is the way in which it can be remotely controlled, via P2P.

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Anti-virus firms at Infosec say they expect Vista and IE7 to change nothing for the industry. Microsoft used its presence at the show to laud the security features they’ve been busy building in the the upcoming software.In particular, Microsoft was eager to talk about how Vista will finally jettison the need to run Windows as an administrator most of the time.

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Olmi is a rapidly spreading Internet worm that propagates through instant messages, IRC chats, file sharing networks, e-mails with malicious attachments, weakly protected network shares, malicious backdoors and by exploiting known system and software vulnerabilities.

Once executed, the parasite secretly installs itself to the system and runs a spreading routine. Olmi sends copies of itself to contacts in the Windows Address Book and random, generated addresses. The worm searches for opened instant messages and sends replies containing malicious links. It uses Kazaa, eDonkey, LimeWire, Warez P2P, iMesh and Morpheus peer-to-peer applications to share infected files across popular file sharing networks. Furthermore, Olmi spreads through IRC chats, weakly protected network shares by picking common user names and passwords, and via backdoors left by some widely spread threats.

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You have seen email worms spreading around half the world in just a matter of a day or two. What if a worm employs other modes of proliferation too, in addition to the email way?!

Security Analysts from MicroWorld Technologies inform that ‘Worm.Win32.Feebs.db’ is a new entrant to the Feebs family that spreads via email, P2P Networks and Web /FTP Servers.

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TOKYO: A new computer virus has been spreading through the Winny file-sharing programme. The virus, which sends malicious false messages from the computers it infects, first appeared last month.

Also, a type of virus capable of striking most computers, regardless of whether they are using Winny software, has led to the contents of people’s computers being uploaded to the Internet.

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