It has been revealed that Japanese visitors downloading illegal Hentai games are being targeted by a piece of malware that uploads a user’s net browsing history onto the web before charging victims removal fee. Utilising popular file sharing website Winni, the Trojan virus infects computers, takes screengrabs of browsing history and then demands payment for removal.
Winni is currently used by 200m individuals looking to download free files from music to explicit Hentai games and other entertainment. Named the Kenzero virus, security company Trend Micro revealed that it pretends to be a game installation pop-up, before taking images of internet history, publishing them online and then demand a 1500 yen (£10) removal fee from victims. With the online publication registered to a fictitious Shoen Overns, Trend Micro’s senior security advisor Rik Ferguson explained “We’ve seen the name before in association with the Zeus and Koobface trojans. It is an established criminal gang that is continuously involved in this sort of activity.”
Meanwhile Mr Ferguson revealed that the latest Kenzero virus seemed to be an evolvement from ransomware that has been noted in Europe. Infecting machines and encrypting files as it goes, a pop-up from a fictitious ICPP copyright foundation demands that users pay £258 as “pre-trial settlement”, warning of resulting jail sentences if individuals ignore the notice. However, Mr Ferguson revealed that in addition to sending this notice whether there was illegal content on a hard drive or not, credit card details were then sold on to other companies. “If you find you are getting pop-ups demanding payments to settle copyright infringement lawsuits, ignore them and use a free online anti-malware scanner immediately to check for malware,” he said, adding “And if there’s online content that you want to get hold of, get it from a reputable website – if that means paying that’s what you have to do.”
