Nyxem E-mail worm bent only on destruction
Posted: 31 Jan 2006 7:23 am
<small>By Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
Tue Jan 31, 6:47 AM ET</small>
A fast-spreading e-mail worm is raising alarms because its sole purpose is to obliterate the everyday working documents widely used by consumers, students and businesses.
The Kama Sutra worm - also referred to as Nyxem.E and Grew.A - is unnerving because, unlike other e-mail worms, it appears to be detached from any profit motive.
It is designed to destroy all Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint documents and Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop files on all hard drives connected to an infected PC.
"The amazing part is that there appears to be a lack of any motive behind this except destruction," says David Mayer, researcher at e-mail security firm IronPort Systems.
The worm appears in e-mail in-boxes with subject lines such as "hot movie," "A Great Video" or "Crazy illegal Sex!" enticing the recipient to click on an attachment. One variation makes reference to the ancient Sanskrit book on sexual positions.
By clicking on the attachment, the victim launches a program that disables anti-virus protection. The infected PC then begins to send copies of similarly tainted e-mail to every e-mail address on the victim's hard drive.
Source and full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060131/tc_usatoday/emailwormbentonlyondestruction
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Bob "Wiz" Feinberg
Moderator of the SGF Computers Forum
<small>Visit my Wiztunes Steel Guitar website at: http://www.wiztunes.com/
or my computer troubleshooting website: Wizcrafts Computer Services,
or my Webmaster Services webpage</small>
Tue Jan 31, 6:47 AM ET</small>
A fast-spreading e-mail worm is raising alarms because its sole purpose is to obliterate the everyday working documents widely used by consumers, students and businesses.
The Kama Sutra worm - also referred to as Nyxem.E and Grew.A - is unnerving because, unlike other e-mail worms, it appears to be detached from any profit motive.
It is designed to destroy all Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint documents and Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop files on all hard drives connected to an infected PC.
"The amazing part is that there appears to be a lack of any motive behind this except destruction," says David Mayer, researcher at e-mail security firm IronPort Systems.
The worm appears in e-mail in-boxes with subject lines such as "hot movie," "A Great Video" or "Crazy illegal Sex!" enticing the recipient to click on an attachment. One variation makes reference to the ancient Sanskrit book on sexual positions.
By clicking on the attachment, the victim launches a program that disables anti-virus protection. The infected PC then begins to send copies of similarly tainted e-mail to every e-mail address on the victim's hard drive.
Source and full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060131/tc_usatoday/emailwormbentonlyondestruction
------------------
Bob "Wiz" Feinberg
Moderator of the SGF Computers Forum
<small>Visit my Wiztunes Steel Guitar website at: http://www.wiztunes.com/
or my computer troubleshooting website: Wizcrafts Computer Services,
or my Webmaster Services webpage</small>