By Joris Evers, 24 January 2006 08:25
NEWS
A new email worm that spreads under the guise of pornographic content has jumped to the top of the worldwide virus charts.
When run on a Windows PC, the worm copies itself to shared network locations and sends itself to email addresses found on the target computer. The pest includes a timed attack that attempts to disable antivirus and firewall software and delete certain files - including Office documents - on the third day of the month, according to antivirus software vendor F-Secure.
The worm, dubbed W32/Nyxem-E by F-Secure, arrives attached to an email message. It uses a variety of subject lines, including "School girl fantasies gone bad". The body text also varies but it can include references to the Kama Sutra, the ancient Sanskrit book with pictures and explanations about different sexual positions.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for antivirus vendor Sophos, said in a statement: "This worm feeds on people's willingness to receive salacious content on their desktop computer."
Nyxem-E was the most commonly caught threat in the past 24 hours, according to both F-Secure and Trend Micro, which calls the worm Grew.A. The worm also has its own counting mechanism and it showed 510,000 infected systems on Saturday, according to F-Secure.
F-Secure said in a statement on its corporate blog: "Our internal reporting system shows a steady stream of Nyxems being reported from all over the world, from USA to Australia. If the worm keeps this pace, Friday the 3rd of February might be nasty - that's when the destructive payload is programmed to strike for the first time."
To protect themselves, users should keep their antivirus software up to date and be wary when opening email attachments, experts said.
Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com
Comments
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1. Geoffrey Darnton
Please get the Kama Sutra right .... its original version does not have pictures - the 'pornographic' associations for the Kama Sutra were started by the Mogul pornographers in India a few centuries ago who added drawings (they didn't have photos then), and subsequently continued by those who prefer to focus primarily on various 'positions', ideally well illustrated! The Kama Sutra in its original form is a very comprehensive commentary about relationships - what makes them work and what doesn't - it is a great historical crime that the Kama Sutra is so widely associated with pornography. It is worthwhile reading for anyone with a deep interest in what makes relationships 'tick' - and of course sex may be part of that, but it is only part!
2. Parveen Kumar
Many Thanks to Geoffrey Darnton on bringing this up. I fully agree with him and know quite a bit about Kama Sutra being an Indian myself and having read it. And yes its an exhaustive literature on Relationships of which Love is an important part, sex being a very small yet significant part of it. Quite rightly this association of Kama Sutra with just sexual positions is just ridiculous and degenerative. Its misuse in modern publications should be reassessed.