Italian 'love bug' fails to bite

An Italian variant of the 'love bug' has been contained after spreading through 10 companies in Germany, France and Italy, according to anti-virus experts.

By Ron Coates, 9 February 2001 16:50

NEWS Cartolina is a modification to the bug, which caused havoc worldwide last May. It comes as an email attachment, Cartolina.vbs, which is set up to spread to all the email addresses on the system and to change the home page of Internet Explorer to an Italian music site. The virus' spread has been limited because it is in Italian. The email carrying the attachment has the subject line 'C'e una cartolina per te' - 'There's a postcard for you'. Although US anti-virus company Trend Micro reported the virus had spread in Europe, other European anti-virus firms reported little activity. The UK's Sophos reported only one incident; Finnish F-Secure said it is aware of only a handful of incidents and Symantec's customers were unaffected. Research has recently demonstrated that people still open interesting-sounding attachments despite all the warnings about viruses.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

Log in or create your silicon.com account below

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy.

Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Membership FAQ