Users of the peer to peer file sharing software Morpheus were hit with a hacking double whammy last week, after digitally poisoned software attacked users' machines.

Millions of users were locked out, after a dual attack on Morpheus and its parent company, MusicCity.

First, MusicCity's servers were "hit by a massive denial of service attack," admitted Morpheus chief executive Steve Griffin. Soon after, "Morpheus users found that a separate attack had been launched on their computers and their Morpheus software programs."

Griffin said that the second attack "included an encrypted message being repeatedly sent directly to users' computers that changed registry settings."

"Our ad servers were attacked, resulting in messages being sent to other sites without our knowledge, which threatened our most basic revenue model," he added.

The result is that Morpheus has decided to abandon its backbone network, FastTrack, which is shared with similar file share programs, Kazaa and Grokster.

"Since it appears that the attack on users' computers came from the closed proprietary FastTrack-Kazaa software, we have opted not to continue with this peer-to-peer kernel," said Griffin.

"We believe it to have the ability to access your computer at will and change registry settings. In addition, we remain committed to not bundling any spyware with our product," he warned.

It has come to light in recent months that both Kazaa and Grokster bundle spyware with their client packages, which has scared many users away.

Griffin said that the attacks may still be continuing as Morpheus users attempt to log on to the old network. Over the last few days the company has been trying to get a new client, based on the open source Gnutella model, out to its users.

The Morpheus Preview Edition, to eliminate the fear of hidden spyware, is available from the Musiccity.com website, as is the source code.

www.musiccity.com