Keylogger included with Wall-E Online Game?

It’s always a pleasure to meet other security minded people but it’s troubling when it’s related to a new threat for our kids. My grandson Tristan went to the movies to see Disney’s new Wall-E and so did my new security friend who has the blog “Timeless Journeys”.

Unfortunately, I was pointed to a new post at Timeless Journeys by my long time friend Wayne Porter who warned me (via Twitter) about the dangers of the Wall-E online demo.

It turns out an online demo game of Wall-E from THQ may include a keylogger best known as Spyware.Ardakey according to Norton 360 and other security programs. The software is available on a server from Cachefly who confirmed their servers have not been compromised by some outside hacking. They claim to have notified THQ so it will be interesting to find out how quickly the demo is pulled and what the response will be from THQ.

For now stay clear of Wall-E unless it’s at the theater. Tristan did give the movie Wall-E “Six Thumbs Up” and can’t wait to see Beverly Hills Chichuahua. I’ll update this post as I hear more from Cachefly and THQ.

Update: The opinion today by most researchers is that this report is a false-positive and there is no danger. It's not uncommon to see false-positives for keyloggers but it's rare for security programs to point to a specifically named threat. I downloaded the U.K. Wall-E demo and WinPatrol did not find any malicious software installed.

Source:
http://www.wayneporter.com/2008/08/02/keyloggers-games/

http://www.timelessprototype.com/tpdc/blog/post/2008/08/Keylogger-Detected-in-Wall-E-Demo-PC-Game.aspx

Tristan Xavier Cook