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Trojan malware was programmed to self destruct

The Trojan malware responsible for a series of high-profile attacks on US and South Korean websites last week was programmed to self destruct, it has been claimed.

According to Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks, the malicious code was designed to infect PCs, launch denial of service attacks on websites and then cover its tracks by erasing data from infected hard disc drives.

He wrote on the Washington Post's Security Fix blog, that cybercriminals had programmed the Trojan to overwrite data on hard drives with the message "memory of independence day" followed by as many "u" characters as it would take to completely fill the entire drive.

Officials from South Korea said the attacks originated from 86 separate IP addresses in 16 countries around the world.

According to Eugene Spafford, director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, denial of service attacks in the US are set to continue.

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