Malware disguised as files related to “High School Musical” movie

PandaLabs has reported that numerous downloadable songs and videos related to the hit movie “High School Musical” are being used by cyber-crooks to disguise malware. The infected files are distributed through popular P2P file sharing networks such as eMule, eDonkey, etc. and when users search for files related to “High School Musical” using these programs, some of the results include files infected with malware.

When users run one of these fake files they may expect to hear songs from the film or see a video clip, yet all that will happen is that the computer will be infected by VB.ADQ, the Agent.KGR Trojan, the adware Koolbar, or another strain of malicious code. Some of these might display images related to the film when they are run, but this is just to avoid arousing suspicion.

To protect against these damaging tactics, PandaLabs advises users to take care when downloading files, and in particular, to check the file extension, as many of the malicious files have the extension “.exe”, which is rarely the case with a genuine music or video file.