Japanese Trojan blackmails porn surfers

The Kenzero Japanese Trojan virus installs itself on PCs using a file-sharing service called Winni, reportedly being used by up to 200 million people. According to reports, Kenzero, otherwise called the Blackmail Virus, posts browser history, illegally downloaded porn, clipboard content and favorites to a public website.

Right now, the Trojan specifically targets those illegally downloading hentai (anime porn), apparently a common practice in Japan, so those who don’t share this fetish may be safe – for now.

What security experts are concerned about is Kenzero’s potential for a large-scale tracking of users’ porn surfing habits and having all these details available for the world to see. Or maybe just about anything even remotely controversial that you have in your PC – random musings about love, sex, lust, your friend, neighbor, professor. Or maybe screenshots of your chat transcripts with your YM, Skype or Facebook contacts and then uploading all these to the Internet or anonymously sending these to your parents or significant other. The icky possibilities of having your darkest secrets exposed are endless. The only way to delete the incriminating evidence is for you to pay up, but even that may not be a good idea…

The scammers demand that you pay $18.00, payable by credit card, to have the incriminating details removed, but if you do, your credit card information will be sold to the highest bidder who will attempt to extort more money from you.

Fortunately, the Kenzero Trojan requires a good dose of stupidity on the part of the user for it to operate successfully: A user must enter his contact details as part of the hentai download process. Now, some would think that no one is stupid enough to surrender personal details while downloading pirated software, yet according to reports, some have actually fallen prey to this tactic.

The Kenzero porn Trojan is just one of several malware classified under ransomware used by the Internet bad guys to extort money from users. In March, Fortinet reported a surge in this type of scamming. Examples include the Vundo Trojan, which causes pop-ups for rogue antispyware programs or denial of service with some websites; and the Krotten Trojan, which disables PC functions and demands that a payment be made to a Ukranian mobile phone network.

Another Winny spread malware is Ika-tako, otherwise known as the Octopus Virus. It replaces your files with photos of octopus. The Ika-tako virus has reportedly infected some 20,000 to 50,000 computers and the sad part is that, at present there is no known fix for this malware.