Homepage worm 'second most virulent ever'

NEWS In terms of speed of distribution, the homepage .vbs worm is only superceded by the 'Loveletter' virus - it has already surpassed the original 'Kournikova' worm and the 'Melissa' virus. A spokeswoman for MessageLabs said more than 16,000 Homepage-infected emails have already been intercepted by the company since 20.30(BST) last night. "To give you some idea of the spread of the worm, we detected the Kournikova virus in one in 200 emails, the Homepage virus in one in 58 and the LoveBug in one in 28," she said. She added: "The homepage virus is itself non-destructive, but it is a mass mailer and can bring servers down, or clog them up, slowing them down." She said a number of large companies, including IT publication IT week, had received the virus, whose payload, activated by clicking an attachment, causes browsers to redirect a user's homepage to one of four x-rated websites. The email that announces itself with the subject line: 'Hi ! You've got to see this page! It's really cool :O)' can be intercepted by the downloadable patches available from any good AV vendor.