If fish eat worms, what do worms eat? Music

by Brad Linder Aug 3rd 2007

If you're like most computer users, you probably have nearly 900 MP3s on your computer. If you're like most Download Squad readers you probably have closer to 9,000. Either way, they could all be gone in the blink of an eye.

A new worm called W32.Deletemusic is moving from computer to computer in search of tasty MP3 files to eat (ie: delete). That's pretty much all this worm does. It won't steal your credit card information or other personal data. It won't send spam to everyone on your contact list. But it could remove hundreds or even thousands of files that you've paid to download or rip from your own CD collection.

It's not clear whether the worm was written by some amateur hacker looking to see what he could accomplish or someone hoping to spread an anti-piracy message, you know by deleting legitimate music files. Because that'll show you.

Anyway, the worm can Windows machines running Windows 95 through Vista. The worm can be removed, but by the time you discover your computer's been infected it may be too late. So you might want to disable autorun on your PC until you've updated your virus definitions.

Tags: mp3, music, trojan, virus, w32.deletemusic, worm

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Donald said 10:21PM on 8-03-2007

WHAT? 9000? Surely you underestimate your readership. I get the feeling the average would be somewhere in the 5 digits.

Disclaimer: My collection is more like 2000.

Man said 10:21PM on 8-03-2007

I have about 90 songs on my PC.

And still I barely listen to them.

Mimzy said 10:43PM on 8-03-2007

Wow...thanks for the warning. However, one thing I'm still wondering about - exactly how does this end up on people's computers?

Tom said 9:14AM on 8-04-2007

Right? None of the articles says how the worm is spread.

Abscissa said 4:16PM on 8-04-2007

Pfft...who would want autorun enabled in the first place? That shit is ANNOYING.

Abscissa said 4:16PM on 8-04-2007

I can't wait till the feds trace this back to the RIAA.

Abscissa said 4:16PM on 8-04-2007

I can't wait till the feds trace this back to either Sony, the RIAA, or Lars Ulrich.

steve said 4:17PM on 8-04-2007

damn you downloadsquad.....your beating me
i only have in the 7000s
well if my music gets deleted ill be devastated

Josh said 11:33AM on 8-05-2007

Tom, the ars technica article states "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."

In other words, don't let other people plug their stuff into or map a drive to or from your computer.

Josh said 11:34AM on 8-05-2007

Also, I noticed that it's not exactly a major threat. According to Symantec, it's infected less than 50 machines in 2 or less sites.

AverageFury said 11:57AM on 8-10-2007

22.265 files, 1.894 folders

124.124.500.631 bytes

mwahahahaha

AverageFury said 11:57AM on 8-10-2007

22.265 files, 1.894 folders

124.124.500.631 bytes

mwahahahaha

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