P2P Networks like LimeWire and FrostWire Assaulted by Obama/McCain Malware

According to security company Webroot the Internet users who eagerly eat up any material related to the ongoing election campaign in U.S. should watch out when using Gnutella-based file sharing networks because under what might seem to be just John McCain and Barack Obama campaign videos malware could lie concealed.

Allegedly, in a single test, of 34 search results for "Obama Speech" on FrostWire, 14 of the results revealed active malware being added. Of the 19 search results for "McCain Speech," five were discovered.

Thus we learn that Obama speeches enjoy greater popularity which, as we can see, hackers try to exploit.

Apparently, the most widespread malware version the research brought up in the campaign videos was W32/Zipwire, delivered through a zip file bearing different titles such as "Democratic Convention 2008 — Barack Obama Acceptance Speech.zip." What awaits for you, is, as you probably expect, an executable file that, when run, infects the your PC with malicious antivirus applications. The purpose of these bogus antivirus apps is to prompt you with fake security problems meant to lure users into purchasing sham solutions.

"Peer-to-peer networks pose some of the greatest security risks on Internet," stated Paul Piccard, director, Threat Research, Webroot. "Because P2P networks lack the security measures found in enterprise networks or trusted Web sites, users of these networks may put themselves or their companies at increased risk by downloading malicious content or leaking confidential data."

Webroot says it discovered password stealers and backdoors hidden in these campaign files.