Virus exploits celebrity cachet - News - Security

To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

--------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Virus exploits celebrity cachet

By Will Sturgeon, 0
July 08, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Virus-exploits-celebrity-cachet/0,130061744,120276044,00.htm

Users hoping for a sneaky peek at some candid shots of Hollywood star Julia Roberts in compromising positions are facing disappointment -- the e-mail attachment turns out to be a computer virus.

Curious smut-seekers are in danger of infecting their machines with the mass-mailing worm MyLife.M, which purports to be a screensaver featuring the "Notting Hill" star.

However, the virus is still carrying a low-level warning from most anti-virus vendors and appears to be doing very little damage currently, perhaps because of the lack of originality in terms of infection methods.

It is the latest variation on a theme which has proven popular with virus writers -- promising shots of naked celebrities to entice users to click on the attachment.

Anna Kournikova, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Zeta Jones and Colombian singer Shakira have all be given the dubious honour of having a virus named after them.

As with other mass mailers, the e-mail attachment when activated searches out e-mail addresses on the infected machine and forwards itself on to all names in the affected user's address book. Worse still, if the time is between 50 and 59 minutes past the hour, upon activation it will also attempt to delete files from the machine's hard drive, according to Sophos.

As ever, users are advised to be careful when opening anything which comes into their inbox, especially if they cannot vouch for the attachment or the sender. Ideally users should only open files they have specifically requested or are expecting.