Party worm crashed out in Australia - News - Security

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Party worm crashed out in Australia

By Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia
January 29, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Party-worm-crashed-out-in-Australia/0,130061744,120263162,00.htm

An e-mail virus first spotted in Asia and which has infected computers in more than 50 countries flaked out here before the party got going over Australia's long weekend.

Dubbed "My Party", W32.MyParty@MM or W32/MyParty-A arrives as an e-mail with the subject line "new photos from my party!" Masquerading as a link to a Web site, www.myparty.yahoo.com, the worm replicates itself to everyone in the Windows address book, used by Outlook and Outlook Express when the link is clicked upon.

Sophos Australia said it had received reports of a number of worldwide infections, but -more like dozens rather than hundreds" and only a handful coming out of Asia-Pacific.

"I'd steeled myself for a significant number of reports," Paul Duckin, head of global support at Sophos Australia told ZDNet Australia, but -it shows users' increased reticence to believe the garbage they receive by e-mail," he added.

According to Duckin, the innocuous looking www.myparty.yahoo.com file attachment was -quite an interesting trick" and people would have been -more forgiven for clicking on it". However, in part due to the Australia Day long weekend and also the fact that people are wising up to e-mail worms the virus lost its fizz locally.

The worm, which is programmed to infect computers from January 25 to January 29, should be partied out by the end of the day.

Sophos has devised a patch at http:/www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32mypartya.html.