Sophos advises on threat posed by new .JPG virus, and urges
anti-virus companies to exercise restraint
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| The Perrun virus attempts to infect JPEG graphic
files, commonly used on the web or for digital photography |
Sophos, a world leader in corporate anti-virus protection, today
called for the anti-virus industry to act responsibly in light of
the discovery of the first virus capable of infecting JPEG graphic
files.
The virus, known as W32/Perrun-A, was sent
directly to the anti-virus community by its author and is
considered to be a "proof of concept". It spreads in the form of a
traditional Win32 executable virus (usually called proof.exe),
making changes to the Registry to mean that JPEG (.JPG) graphic
files are examined by an extractor (called EXTRK.EXE) before they
can be viewed. If the extractor finds viral code inside the graphic
file it is executed.
"Some anti-virus vendors may be tempted to predict the end of
the world as we know it, or warn of an impending era when all
graphic files should be treated with suspicion. Such experts should
be ashamed of themselves," said Graham Cluley, senior technology
consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Not only is this virus not in
the wild, but also graphic files infected by this virus are
completely and utterly harmless, unless they can find an already
infected machine to assist them. It's like a cold only being
capable of making people who already have runny noses feel
ill."
"The virus relies entirely upon you running an infected EXE
file, which is hardly rocket science," said Paul Ducklin, Head of
Global Support for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Yet we are already seeing
reports suggesting that this virus could spread via websites
containing so-called 'infectious' images. This sounds like
scare-mongering about image files to me."
Sophos has issued protection against
W32/Perrun-A to customers concerned by the media reports and
alerts from other anti-virus vendors.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.