iPhone game carries a trojan that brings down Windows machines

If you run a Windows network and support iPhone-carrying users, better warn them not to open a free “game” called Penguin.Panic.zip.

The game carries a Trojan that, if transferred to a Windows machine, will wreak havoc with it. The game arrives with subject lines such as “Virtual iPhone games!” and “Apple: The most popular game!” Other subject lines only mention it as a game, so Windows users may click on it, not even realizing it is supposedly an iPhone game.

According to Sophos, the security firm credited with discovering this unusual attack, the game won’t hurt the iPhone itself, nor will it affect Mac OS X.

The trojan isn’t new — it’s a variant of Troj/Agent-HNY, but the delivery mechanism of an iPhone game is new. Sadly, the game this file supposedly contains is real, too. In the real Penguin Panic game, a penguin jumps around icebergs to avoiding falling ice.

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