Posted on 01/12/2005 9:21:57 AM PST by holymoly
An emailed New Year photo of naked people contains a nasty shock - a worm that will turn off security protection and harvest email addresses
Antivirus companies have unearthed a computer worm that hides behind an image of naked people.
According to antivirus company Sophos, the naughty New Year photo message contains a mass-mailing worm, dubbed Wurmark-D, that is programmed to disable security software on host computers and send itself to email addresses stored there.
"Once activated, this worm will harvest your computer hunting for other email addresses to send itself to and try and turn off antivirus software," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"Anyone who forgets to exercise caution before running this unsolicited email attachment could be in for a rude awakening. People coming into work after a long holiday, and possibly facing a few thousand emails in their inbox, should be careful not to fall for the confidence tricks often used by computer viruses."
The Wurmark-D worm travels as an attachment to an email that claims to include some amusing content. When the file is opened, the worm displays a graphic image of nude men and women contorting to form the words "HAPPY NEW YEAR". But at the same time, the worm secretly installs itself behind the scenes, and forwards itself to other computers.
Sophos said that typical Wurmark-D worm emails had the following characteristics:
Subject: "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Message body: All the best in new year from our family here is a litle attachment to make you smile in new year email me back haha...
The worm has only caused a small number of reports.
Last year a virus writer sent emails promising photos of a blonde, 21-year-old go-go dancer, and the email attachments turned out to be a mass-mailing variant of the Sober worm.
In other words, your anti-virus program may, or may not, protect you.
As always, if you didn't ask someone to send you that file/attachement, do not open it.
And "Happy Nude Year" isn't the only new worm:
Cellery worm plays Tetris as it spreads
You mean people are still opening attachments? How bizarre. I stopped doing that years ago.
My motto:
If you don't imbed, it won't get read.
I always delete without opening the attachment.
A worm in the attachment?
Antivirus companies have unearthed a computer worm that hides behind an image of naked people... Last year a virus writer sent emails promising photos of a blonde, 21-year-old go-go dancer, and the email attachments turned out to be a mass-mailing variant of the Sober worm.
Take away is, that while last year, many of us were burned by the go-go attachment, this year, there is a real legit porn photo, so it's prolly worth it to open the attachment.
Question is, it says "naked people" so there may be some hairy, Canadian looking fellas. I'm going to go out and look for this e mail and open it. I'll post back here if there's anything to be worried about.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
One possibility: Someones' computer is infected. That person has (or had) your email address on their PC. The worm/trojan/virus has harvested your email address. Now it's emailing copies of itself, with your email address in the "from" field. When the emails bounce or are rejected, they come back to you.
LOL... Keep us updated fearless one. haha
Where is the "example" photo ?
;>)
I don't know why anyone would open an email from a recognized sender without a detailed and pertainent subject line.
No subject line; toast, immediately no matter who it is followed by a nasty phone call if I know who the sender is.
If I receive an email from a recognized recipient and they don't include a subject line stating their specific reason for contacting me the mail gets deleted.
I've had business associates who have complained that I didn't respond to their mail and I have told them if you don't include a detailed subject line or I'm not expecting mail from you the mail is deleted.
People who fall for these scams either have loose personal boundary issues or they're newsgroup freaks.
Don't call me unless you have legitimate business. Works like a charm.
Probably because your email address is in an address book on an infected PC that is sending the email.
I heard it was all Ann Coulter!
Of course I only heard it after I made it up, but who's counting....
(c8
There are at least three reasons why you might get such a message:
a) You were infected by a worm that sent out messages to people in your address book
b) Someone else is using your return address instead of their own to cover their hacking activities.
c) It's just a fake message sent to you at random.
The third is most likely. I seem to be getting several every day recently. But if you get a message like that from someone you actually know, then it's a good idea to check your computer for infections.
bump
Customer sees a mail, with the attachment don't open this.
He opened this and after reinstalling his system, he was out about 2000 hrs of work.
Oh well stuff happens.
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