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| The Delf-IT Trojan horse waits for surfers to
visit hardcore adult websites. |
Sophos comments on malware being used in 'porn wars'
Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses from virus and
spam, has discovered a Trojan horse which preys on visitors to
hardcore adult websites.
The Troj/Delf-IT Trojan horse
lurks in the background on infected PCs, waiting for the user to
visit webpages which contain one of various adult phrases in their
title. If the Trojan horse determines you are visiting a hardcore
website it then downloads code which redirects the browser to
another pornographic site.
"It's possible that the Delf Trojan horse is deliberately
designed to drive traffic from other adult webpages to its own
grubby website," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "With so much money being made by
internet pornographers it may be that some of them are using Trojan
horses like this to generate more traffic and revenue. All computer
users should keep their anti-virus software up-to-date, as well as
thinking carefully about whether they should really be visiting
websites of a dubious nature."
The Trojan horse contains over 50 trigger phrases to look for,
which will cause it to spring into action. The phrases include:
amateur
barely legal
beauty
bikini
closeup
domination
extreme
ladyboy
lesbian
lolita
nympho
outdoor
pornstars
spanked
"Because some of the trigger phrases chosen by the Trojan -
particularly 'outdoor' and 'beauty' - can be used perfectly
innocently, it's possible that surfers who wished to see nothing
sordid will find themselves redirected to a hardcore pornography
website," continued Cluley. "People who have an interest in
rambling and the great outdoors may find themselves far from the
beaten track."
Although only a small number of instances of the Trojan horse
have been sighted so far, Sophos recommends companies protect their
computers with a consolidated solution to
thwart the virus and spam threats as well as secure their desktop
and servers with automatically updated anti-virus protection.
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.