A Helpful Trojan Horse?

Here's a first: a Trojan horse that actually helps security pros do their jobs.

Analysts at SophosLabs, the research arm of antivirus software vendor Sophos, have discovered a spyware-borne Trojan, dubbed Troj/Erazer-A, that seeks out and destroys movie and music files that it suspects to be illegal copies transmitted via peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks.

The Trojan looks through P2P file sharing folders, seeking out formats such as AVI, MP3, MPEG, WMV, GIF, and ZIP. When it finds these files, it wipes them out and places a copy of itself in the folder, using tempting names such as game.exe, goporn.exe, nero7.exe, and officexpcrack.exe, according to Sophos.

Researchers say that, while some IT departments may be tempted to keep a Trojan that deletes files enterprise users aren't supposed to have anyway, they should think twice...

Get the rest of the story at Dark Reading.Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading