Trojan publishes embarassing browsing history online
Kenzero virus hackers extort money from unwary surfers
By PC World staff | PC World | Published: 12:00, 16 September 2010
In an era where online privacy seems like an oxymoron, is it so bad to have your browsing history publicly available? Or to pay less than £20 to have these details removed from the Internet?
Several Trojan horses spreading around the Internet these days spam your entire address book with bogus messages and attempt to delete your computer’s security software. But the Kenzero Trojan out of Japan goes further than pretending to be a legitimate program: Hackers behind the program not only post your browser history, favourites, illegally downloaded porn and clipboard content to a public website, they demand payment of about £15 to remove the personal details of your browsing history.
Kenzero is a Trojan of the “ransomware” variety, where a malicious program masquerading as a game registration window takes your personal details then attempts to extort money out of you.
Related Articles on Techworld
The Trojan then posts that you’ve been downloading illegal Hentai (explicit anime) games, and that instead of just being out £20, you’ll find that scammers have sold your credit card information to the highest bidder. How does Kenzero spread? Mostly via the Winny filesharing network, which has approximately 200 million users.
Though if you’re illegally downloading computer games, why would you give personal details to a pirated piece of software? It's food for thought. While you’re mulling that, there’s even a paper on similar Japanese scams being presented at the upcoming Association for Computing Machinery Computer and Communications Security conference.
