[Update] Sonic 2 HD contains virus, DELETE ASAP!

4/11/12 11:00am

Update - So now Scarred Sun was apparently exaggerating about those issues and the team working on the HD remake has responded.

First Scarred Sun has updated the Internets by saying "I fucked up. This is totally my fault and I take full responsibility for that. The article has been redacted and there will be another one going up shortly that explains the situation". Ok...

Then we have reports from the Project Manager Canned Karma who says there is no Keylogger in the demo. It's "Just a bug (or lazy code) from DirectInput that causes it to read input even when the window is out of focus. The worst that can happen is you alt-tab out of S2HD, try to type something, and Sonic runs and jumps in the background when you press movement keys". That programmer is no longer on the team. Moral of the story here is don't play an Alpha build of a fan-made game unless you are willing to take a gamble. I for one will wait until the full release.

Editor's Note: Kotaku has also updated the post to reference a number of "issues" that this project has faced. It might not even really be a "community project" anymore based on what writer Scarred Sun implies.

Well this is bad news for anybody who downloaded Sonic 2 HD. The people who made the Sonic 2 HD Fan Project were recently told the software file contains a Keylogger virus which logs everything you type. This could be seen on Sonic Retro as a PSA post

Earlier today, I was contacted by a professional antivirus employee who was interested in why Sonic 2 HD consistently popped up as a threat by multiple antivirus software programs and did some investigation. His results showed that a keylogger is part of the Sonic 2 HD software. After receiving this notification, we conducted our own independent tests and found that there is indeed a keylogging program as part of the Sonic 2 HD alpha software.
I want to emphasize that at this time, we have found no evidence that the software has been “phoning home” any data—only that we have found the capability exists. Because this vulnerability has been found, we are strongly advising that the software be removed. You will need to delete the files included with the Sonic 2 HD zip, as well as the registry keys hooked at HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/NakaSMK (if you are unfamiliar on how to do this, go to Start->Run.., type regedit, follow the folder path, and then delete the NakaSMK folder.)

Kotaku.com who reported on this sad event and over at Sonic Retro urge people who have downloaded the game to delete it immediately and the Zip file as well until a solution is provided.

» Source: http://kotaku.com/5900549/sonic-2-hd-contains-keylogger-delete-immediately
» Tagged In: #community showcase, #Delete, #fan project, #Keylogger, #Sonic 2 HD, #Virus