"Penguin Panic" trojan targets Windows iPhone users

Spam e-mails advertising iPhone games—often with subject lines of "Virtual iPhone games!," "Take a break!," and "Apple: The most popular game!"—have begun circulating around the web toting a zip file called Penguin.Panic.zip. When opened, the Troj/Agent-HNY trojan is released and will wreak havoc on Windows systems.

The trojan was brought to light by security firm Sophos yesterday, although it appears as if this particular trojan has been going around in other forms for some time. It doesn't actually affect the iPhone itself; only iPhone users who happen to be running Windows. There are no versions yet that run on Mac OS X or any mobile devices.

"Hackers, it seems, are jumping on the bandwagon of the iPhone phenomenon and using it as a springboard to infect innocent users," writes the security firm. "Many people might have played Penguin Panic on their Apple iPhone or another portable device, and be keen to have it on the desktop of their Windows work PC too."

Apple products have increasingly been targeted by all sorts of scammers. A number of phishing e-mails targeting MobileMe and iTunes users have already gone out this year, and now this! Although most of us Mac users might like to point and giggle at our Windows-using friends for this one, becoming victim of a trojan is never fun. As usual, exercise careful judgment when opening e-mail attachments, especially when they come from people you don't know. 

Source:

http://arstechnica.com