Its being reported in this Newsbytes story that a quirk in media players from Microsoft and RealNetworks could enable attackers to hijack web browsers and run scripts on the computers of some MP3 music fans. It appears that the that the bug has already be exploited by some spammers and pr0n websites as the files are starting to turn up on file sharing service. Newsbytes ran a few tests and found that the two media players mentioned above ignore the file extension and play the file. They renamed a MS wma file extension to MP3 and the Windows media player played the file no problem. Same with the RealNetworks player. Winamp or other programs that don't support the proprietary formats of the Windows Media Player or Real Networks aren't capable of playing files with the extension changed.. A demo can be found here.

So far it appears that only spammers and pornsite operators have utilized this attack to open dozens of popups in your browser, but how long before hackers take over your system or the RIAA directs you to copyright infringment sites while reading your ISP address and sending automated messages to your isp to kill your service without due process?

Yet another reason NOT to use WMP or Real.

Real Bad news.
Really bad Real news.

For those of you using MusicMatch Jukebox or Sonique, I just tested both and neither will play these fake MP3 filez.
USe Winamp, Musicmatch, or Sonique and you are safe.

Winamp will play files with other extensions if they are encoded as mp3. Taken in mind because Mopheus saves the file as a .dat extention as it's downloading, and those .dat files can play in Winamp. Hell Winamp will play files without an extension, as long as the data contained is mp3 encoded.

Real Player and WMP suck anyway, Winamp is the only way to go as far as Im concerned.

I don't know who would use Real for mp3s anyway.

MusicMatch has an AWESOME free demo.. and the full version is worth the cash. what the HELL happened to MS going "cold iron" to fix this kind of bug?
Winamp sux, WMPsux.. so .. that pretty much means that this thing shouldn't get very far with serious audiophiles *smirk*... whatever..
who comes up with these things??

I only use Winamp