[TechJunkYard]

One Trojan horse discovered by security companies Thursday is a variant of a pre-existing software distributed by spam e-mail, among other techniques.

One version of the e-mail claims to be from a business publication and says it is using a photograph of the recipient for a soon-to-be published article, according to security company BitDefender. Clicking on the alleged photograph installs the malicious software, which then connects automatically to the Internet Relay Chat chat network, opening up a channel to control the infected computer.

In a new version of the program, the software hides itself using Sony's rootkit tool and then tries to connect to a server on the chat network. The first version of the Trojan was unable to function after hiding itself, security company F-Secure said. However, several other variants have been found that are able to successfully take over control of a computer after hiding under the Sony software.

All virus companies are rating the danger as fairly low so far, since the Trojans seem to be spreading slowly.

Sony/BMG should be in DEEP doo-doo over this.

Aren't you glad you run Linux? Don't you wish everybody did?

[TechJunkYard]

Hmmm... apparently Sony/BMG discs can also install Mac kernel extensions. You guys aware of this?

I recently purchased Imogen Heap's new CD (Speak for Yourself), an RCA Victor release, but with distribution credited to Sony/BMG. Reading recent reports of a Sony rootkit, I decided to poke around. In addition to the standard volume for AIFF files, there's a smaller extra partition for "enhanced" content. I was surprised to find a "Start.app" Mac application in addition to the expected Windows-related files. Running this app brings up a long legal agreement, clicking Continue prompts you for your username/password (uh-oh!), and then promptly exits. Digging around a bit, I find that Start.app actually installs 2 files: PhoenixNub1.kext and PhoenixNub12.kext.