Bad news for videogame console owners - the first examples of malicious code designed to infect the devices has been found in the wild. According to security firm Panda, the Format.A trojan can infect the Sony's PSP, and the Tahen trojan can infect the Nintendo DS. Described as being "extremely dangerous", the malware deletes critical files, and can even irreversibly render the PSP console unusable.
In order to spread, Format.A is designed to imitate a tool developed to run unsigned code on PSP consoles. The Tahen Trojans, on the other hand, purport to be homebrew applications for Nintendo DS. However, when users install them, they overwrite certain areas of firmware on the Nintendo DS console and the G6, XGFlash, SuperCard and GBAMP devices (which allow cartridges to be recorded with software to run on the console).