Rampant Virus - Its worm season!

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Paris Hilton:
An e-mail worm promising explicit pictures of hotel heiress Paris Hilton is spreading widely, antivirus experts warned on Wednesday.

The mass-mailing worm, Sober.K, is currently the third most commonly encountered virus, making up 10 percent of all viruses detected in the last 24 hours, Sophos reported.

"This latest variant of the Sober worm may catch out the unwary as they open their e-mail in-box," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"Although much-publicized virus outbreaks in the past should have made users more nervous of double-clicking on unsolicited e-mail attachments, some still find it hard to resist," he added. "All users should be reminded to follow safe computing guidelines, and PCs should be kept automatically updated with the latest antivirus protection."

The new Sober variant sends itself in German and English, using a variety of subject lines, including "Paris Hilton, pure!" and "Paris Hilton SexVideos."

The Zafi.D virus, which was released last year, is Sophos' most prevalent, accounting for 27.6 percent of all reports in the last 24 hours. The Harry Potter Netsky.P worm is in second position with 22.4 percent.

Hilton shot to prominence after starring in a home video that became an Internet phenomenon. On the same day that Sober.K was discovered, it was reported that hackers had broken into Hilton's cell phone and stolen the telephone numbers of celebrities before posting them online.

A second, more dangerous worm that uses similar bait, Ahker.C, was also discovered this week. The Ahker-C worm disables antivirus and firewall settings, and blocks access to some Web sites. It sends itself with the subject line "Paris Hilton...download it!" and a file called "ParisXXX.zip", which contains the virus.

FBI:
The FBI is warning the public about malicious e-mails designed to appear as if they were generated by the law enforcement agency.

In a statement released late Tuesday, the FBI detailed the threat, which attempts to lure e-mail users into opening an attachment containing a computer virus.

The mail is disguised as correspondence warning people that their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center and that they have "accessed illegal Web sites." The e-mails then direct recipients to open the virus-laden attachment to answer a series of questions.

The FBI said it is currently investigating the origin of the malicious e-mail and indicated that it would never send unsolicited messages to the public. The agency further warned people against opening any e-mail attachment sent to them from an unknown sender.

Spoofing, or the practice of sending unsolicited e-mail meant to appear as if it were generated by a reliable or known source, is a problem that continues to plague everyone from the world's largest financial services companies to government agencies to individual e-mail users. The issue has gained renewed attention as the number of spoofing campaigns linked to identity theft scams--also known as phishing attacks--has increased significantly in recent years.

The FBI has been dealing other tech-related problems recently. Earlier this month, in an audit of the agency's computing infrastructure, Justice Department officials said that the FBI has failed to adequately address problems identified after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Much of the criticism centered on the FBI's inability to install its Virtual Case File system, software meant to improve the manner in which FBI workers share information.

"I love you":
Five years after the world fell victim to the "I love you" virus, a malicous-software writer is trying a similar trick on unsuspecting users.

Antivirus company Sophos unearthed the new mass-mailing worm, dubbed Assiral, on Monday. It mimics the earlier virus, which used the phrase "I love you" in subject lines to entice recipients into opening the destructive e-mail and attachment (which was typically titled "love-letter-for-you"). The original bug wrought havoc on networks around the world, but Sophos doesn't think Assiral will be as destructive.

"The Assiral worm uses an old trick to seduce users into believing they may have received a romantic love letter," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "It's almost five years since the infamous Love Bug worm fooled millions of Windows users around the world using a similar tactic--and it seems unlikely that Assiral will have anything like as much impact."

Assiral e-mails are sent with the subject line "LOV YA!" and contain text asking the reader to open an attached file. A typical example can be seen below:

Subject:
Re: LOV YA!

Body:
Kindly read and reply to my LOVE LETTER in the attachments :-)

Attachment title:
LOVE_LETTER.TXT.exe


Attachment body:
Greetz from LARISSA.B!
I will survive,
In this moment in time.
You computer will crash,
So, you will be mine.
I never crash,
I never fail.
So, in this moment in time,
I will surive...
-LARISSA AUTHOR - 5-15-05

If the attached file is launched, the worm opens a Web page hosted at Geocities and attempts to send itself to contacts in the recipient's Outlook address book.

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lusty or over-curious. As they say, "Curiousity killed the cat!"