New Worm Eats Your MP3 Collection.

[raffytaffy]

It's no secret that people like to collect music on their PCs, with music files taking up more and more hard drive space as time goes on. Recent data from Comscore says that as of April of this year the typical computer in the US contains an average of 880 MP3 files, taking up roughly 3GB of hard drive space. Compared to the average number of Word documents (197), PDFs (100), and Excel files (77), music files make up the single most common type of file found on an average computer by a long shot.
But that very hobby could bite an avid MP3 collector in the butt if a new worm makes its way into their computers. A newly-uncovered worm called W32.Deletemusic does exactly what its name implies—it goes through a PC and deletes all MP3 files in sight. And that's it. Simultaneously low-threat and highly annoying, the worm makes its way from computer to computer by spreading itself onto all attached drives of a given PC, including flash drives and removable media. If that media is then removed and inserted into another computer, it continues its music-eating rampage on the new host.
This isn't the first time such a worm has gone after MP3 files. Nopir-B made its rounds some two years ago and posed as DVD copying software, according to security firm Sophos. When users tried to run it, Nopir-B scolded them for participating in piracy and proceeded to delete all MP3s from their computers. Similarly, last year's Erazer trojan deleted not only MP3 files, but AVIs, MPEGs, WMVs, and ZIP files as well in a "crusade" against piracy.
Of course, these worms don't take into account the fact that many MP3 files may not be pirated at all—they could be legitimate downloads, ripped from CDs, or even recorded by users themselves. And while losing an entire music collection that you've dedicated so much time into ripping, labeling, and organizing can be devastating, there is no real payload for the worm's efforts. Such foresight isn't exactly the forte of these trojan-writers, according to Sophos' Graham Cluley. "The authors of this worm are more likely to be teenage mischief makers than the organized criminal gangs we typically see authoring financially-motivated malware these days," he said in a statement seen by IDG News Service.
A quick poll among the Ars Technica staff shows that not only do we all have a disproportionate number of MP3 files compared to the national average, some of us would be quite a bit more inconvenienced than others if we were to get bitten by the W32.Deletemusic bug. The number of music files on our computers ranged from the low end of 1,400 all the way up to a staggering 35,000, and we're sure that some of our readers could probably give those numbers a run for their money. And that's why Cluley advises that users should turn off any autorun functionalities on their computers to prevent the worm from spreading.
W32.Deletemusic affects computers running Windows 2000/95/98/Me/NT/Server 2003/Vista/XP.


source - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ng-trojan.html

[Nemezijus]

At this moment I feel lucky that all my mp3 collection is kept safely in dvds

[kpb]

i hope my nod32 will be able to block it

[AustralianGQ]

if u got good spyware and antivirus programs u should be fine, also dont open up strange emails and dont go to strange websites u dont normally go to and u should be fine...i have an external HD for storage so im not worried!

[NihilistBear7]

I have all of my music on external HD also, but the article says the bug can spread to all attached drives. Most of my music is either legit from hard copies of CDs or I have it backed up on CDs I burned. It's having to re-rip everything that would make me mad if this happened.

[Crystal]

i have all my mp3s on dvds buti still hope that my antivirus, firewall and router protection will save me!

[dischinaman]

if u got good spyware and antivirus programs u should be fine, also dont open up strange emails and dont go to strange websites u dont normally go to and u should be fine...i have an external HD for storage so im not worried!

same here, all my mp3s are stored on my external HDD! thank god for that

[SPUDHEAD]

whever made the virus is a very sad, gay person who needs a life. thankfully all my music is backed up on my old pc and also on rewritable dvds (as data not as actual music cds) so if they get lost i can re rip them from the cds to my computer. but i did that in case of computer crashing, not because of any dumb virus

[hollowman1]

this is another warning stay away from PORN sites lol

[Rhand]

Where would you encounter this worm? And I mean site-wise.

Also, most pornsite-related virusses and worms I've encountered so far always ask for downloading and installing first. Is that always the case? Or is visiting websites enough to infect your computer?

And a last question, how exactly do I back-up my music without using DVD's/CD's?

[daveB]

At this moment I feel lucky that all my mp3 collection is kept safely in dvds

I have them on DVDs, too. Too risky to keep them on the hardrive.

[Arcana]

At this moment I feel lucky that all my mp3 collection is kept safely in dvds

Meeeee tooooooo

[Xilo]

you must be a really sad person to write a virus that can do things like this why would people hurt innocent mp3's

[Supra2061]

wow.... i really hope i do not get infected by this damn worm.... music is all i do on my comp basically besides watch movies. Any way to prevent this?

[Xilo]

wow.... i really hope i do not get infected by this damn worm.... music is all i do on my comp basically besides watch movies. Any way to prevent this?

you can start with an up-to-date anti-virus software and other protection software against spyware and all that shit.
and also back-up all your music on a external harddisc or on CD's/DVD's. I also have my music on some back-up DVD's.