Anti-virus firm Sophos has identified the new Trojan as Qhost-AC. Qhost installs no malware or otherwise malicious code when it infects a computer, and it affects virtually none of a computer's performance — with two notable exceptions. It blocks user access to the peer-to-peer file sharing sites The Pirate Bay and Mininova.
Surfers and webmasters who want to continue using the sites, known as popular indexes for BitTorrent files, should avoid downloading any files that look too good to be true. One anonymous surfer said he accidentally downloaded the Qhost virus from The Pirate Bay itself.
“I didn’t follow the well-established rules of downloading," he told TorrentFreak.com. "It was a file with a low number of seeds, many leechers and no comments. I’ve downloaded the file and didn’t visit the torrent page again to view if there were any negative comments.”
The virus also blocks access to Suprbay, the discussion forums for The Pirate Bay. Advice for how to remove the file can be found at MVPS.org.
P2P file-sharing has long been the bane of content producers on both sides of the mainstream and adult divide, and some believe that the MPAA is helping to win the war against piracy.