Sophos has today detected a new computer worm which claims to be a
movie of Hollywood actress Julia Roberts in compromising scenes
unlikely to have been approved by her publicist.
The MyLife-M (W32/MyLife-M) worm can
distribute itself in an email with the subject line "FW: Julia
Roberts" with an attached file which claims to show the Oscar
winner engaged in unusual activity on the lavatory. The worm
appears to have been deliberately spread across the internet, and
several users have reported being hit.
If recipients of the salacious email launch the attached file,
the worm forwards itself to all contacts in the infected computer's
address book. Worse still, if the time is between 50 and 59 minutes
past the hour, the worm attempts to delete files from the hard
drive.
"The public appears to be hungry for pictures of pretty women in
the media, but this is quite different from looking at photos in
gossip magazines," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant
for Sophos Anti-Virus. "Viruses often use celebrities to lure
innocent but curious computer users. If you're not careful with
what programs you run on your PC, you could be flushing your data
down the toilet."
The MyLife-M worm can also forward itself posing as a
screensaver of another celebrity - the Colombian pop singer
Shakira. In this guise, the worm includes a bogus claim that the
attached file has been certified virus-free by an anti-virus
product in an attempt to reassure recipients that it is not
dangerous.
Sophos reminds users that a safe computing policy and up-to-date
anti-virus software will nullify the risk of infection. Sophos
recommends companies set policies about whether their users can
receive executable code from the outside world via email.
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.