Japan Arrests Virus Writer over Copyright Breach

For the first time In Japan, a virus writer was arrested by the Japanese authorities. The Japanese authorities made an announcement on January 24, 2008, about arresting three men who are believed of being involved in the plan of spreading virus to the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing network Winny along with the Trojan horse. SophosLabs has advised businesses to keep their network protected from malware attacks.

The three hackers who got caught are said to be the creators of a virus which showed images of a renowned anime character, while washing away all the music and video files in a computer. The anime character is an animation style which is practiced in Japan.

As per the reports, the arrested attackers have confessed their offense and confirmed that they have developed a virus called Harada. The three men also confirmed their relation with the virus Pirlames Trojan horse that was seized by the Japanese net Security firm Sophos last year (2007).

The reports further reveal that out of the three, one hacker created the malware and the other two are considered to offering the malware up to Winny's potential mark.

Senior Technology Consultant for Sophos, Graham Cluley, said that as developing virus is not an illegal act in Japan, therefore, the author of Trojan horse has been arrested over copyright breach, as the hacker used anime characters in his malware without permission. Graham further said that as the arrest was first of its kind, it would help to grab the attention of all and would tighten the security against the malware growth, according to news reported by infozine.com on January 24, 2008.

Cluley further said that business are looking to control the access to P2P file-sharing software by users not only due to the reason that they consume bandwidth or violate copyright protection laws, but also due to the fact that they put security of corporate data in risk.

In 2006, Sophos conducted a survey as per which, around 86.5% of respondents said that they are looking for an opportunity to block P2P applications. The survey also indicated that around 79% of respondents called blocking an essential part.

Related article: Japan – Reinforce Spam Laws

» SPAMfighter News - 2/6/2008