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| Sophos experts say that there is no need for panic. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have urged owners of Nintendo DS consoles not to panic following the discovery of two Trojan horses which target the popular handheld games device.
The Troj/DSTahen-A and Troj/DSTahen-B Trojan horses attempt to wipe out the flash memory, preventing the Nintendo DS from booting. However, because both Trojan horses are unapproved custom applications, and not endorsed by Nintendo, they are only capable of running on modified consoles which have been altered to allow unsigned code to be run.
"Nintendo DS owners don't need to rush out to buy anti-virus software for their games console alongside "Super Mario", "Nintendogs" and "Yoshi Touch & Go". These Trojan horses are harmless unless you have deliberately modified your console to let it run unauthorized software," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "These Trojan horses are not viruses, and cannot replicate. For now Nintendo DS owners need to worry more about scratching their touch screen through excessive playing rather than having their console turned into a useless lump of plastic by these Trojans."
Users of Sophos anti-virus products were automatically protected against the new Trojan horses. Last week the first Trojan horse for Sony's PSP games console was discovered.
Sophos continues to recommend that users exercise caution about what software they run on their computers, and run the very latest security software.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.