Sophos,
a world leader in corporate anti-virus protection, is today warning
users about a potentially destructive new
virus which poses as a nude picture of Latino lovely Jennifer
Lopez.
Ironically appearing on the same day that the annual 'rear of
the year' winners were announced, the worm, which appears to have
been written in Algeria, arrives in an email with the subject line
"Where are you?". The message body reads "This is my pic in the
beach" and has an attached file called
JENNIFERLOPEZ_NAKED.JPG.VBS.
If users open the attached file the virus forwards itself to
everyone in their address book, potentially creating a vast amount
of email in the style of the Love Bug or Kournikova worms. It then
overwrites music and graphic files on your hard disk. Finally, the
virus launches the highly destructive Chernobyl (also known as CIH)
virus which is capable of totally paralysing a computer, requiring
a hardware fix.
"The lure of Miss Lopez's bottom may be too hard for some hot
blooded males to resist,", said Graham Cluley, senior technology
consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Jennifer Lopez was recently
voted the world's sexiest woman by the readers of FHM magazine, and
it isn't difficult to see why a virus writer would use her as the
bait to entrap innocent users. Users need to take a cold shower and
be cautious of opening any unsolicited email attachments."
As yet, Sophos has not received any reports of this worm, but
are nonetheless encouraging users to be vigilant.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.