Virus writers prey upon newsgroups

NEWS McAfee, the anti-virus division of Network Associates has warned many internet newsgroups are increasingly targeted by virus writers. The company said viruses, disguised as images or .exe files, are often posted more than 200 times a day on usenet discussion groups. Virus writers tend mostly to target the many sex-themed discussion groups which get thousands of visitors each day according to McAfee. Jack Clark, a product manager at Network Associates said: "Usenet has always been a place to distribute files and has now become a place where virus writers spread their malicious code. The main problem is that any virus infected file gets replicated in hundreds or thousands of computers around the world in minutes." Usenet began as a small network of bulletin boards or discussion forums and dates back to the early days of the internet. It now has tens of thousands of newsgroups covering almost every topic imaginable.