BitTorrent Reloaded: Unauthorised installs lead to pirated

[GullyFoyle]

Makes me wonder if this can and will be done with the SONY rootkit.
Eitherway interesting article.
http://www.vitalsecurity.org/2005/12/bittorrent-reloaded-unauthorised.html

Yep, the title is a mouthful but you heard it correctly: those crazy guys behind the Middle-East connected Rootkit-powered Botnet (phew! mouthful alert) experimented with something I haven't seen before, and we have the details over at Spywareguide.com.

In short - along with the second wave of installs that prompted FaceTime to go public with their findings (that would be my guys), the group behind all this auto-installed a version of BitTorrent onto the PCs already infected with the Lockx.exe Rootkit - crazy enough, yes? But then they went one further and started pumping movie files down the pipes, onto a sizeable chunk of those infected machines. You can, of course, see some of the BitTorrent files placed onto the PC in the lovely picture.

Why? Not sure. Some kind of proof-of-concept test-run? Highly likely. Especially as they cut it short, and went back to goofing around with more rootkits. Thing is, I've heard rumours (on the Internets) that some other hacking groups have picked this technique up, and will be running with it shortly.

Better to prepare the troops, right?

Bad enough these creeps are whacking PCs left, right and centre with Rootkits. Even worse that it looks like they're messing with BitTorrent and pumping movies all over the place. There's so many issues with that, I don't know where to start. What would the RIAA angle be on it? Or the other "kill the pirate" type groups? Would they crash down on anybody unfortunate enough to have ended up with this on board, their only "crime" to be whacked by a creepy Rootkit via IM?

Well, seeing as stories are currently flying about regarding people being sued for file-sharing (with no PC!), and Pearworks being rugby-tackled for providing a lyrics search facility, it's quite probable.

There is more to the article, but this covers the main points.

[red lion]

Another point would be if someone was caught with pirated mp3\movies by the riaa etc could they not claim they were put there this way..