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.
Glad to see people are wising up about viruses and worms. I hope they continue to do so.