It’s not the first time P2P file sharing systems have been hit by a Trojan, but this one’s a bit strange:

The trojan in question (Troj/Qhost-AC) identified by anti-virus company Sophos, is a rather unusual one. It doesn’t seem to install spyware or traditional malware, but instead blocks access to the two most popular BitTorrent sites.

The trojan modifies the hosts file and redirects the domains to localhost, which makes them unavailable (except if you are sitting on the machine that hosts The Pirate Bay, that is ). As TorrentFreak stays:

The question remains, who is behind this? While some might argue that the MPAA, RIAA or other anti-piracy advocates might be the source, we think it more likely that the attack originates from a relatively innocent prankster targeting pirates.

which is exactly my opinion as this is a pretty unimaginative attempt to annoy filesharers. A billion Dollar trade group can certainly do better than that

Via TorrentFreak