Researchers at Sophos have warned computer users to be on their
guard against a variant of the Bagle worm which poses as an email
from a young woman looking for love.
The W32/Bagle-W
worm spreads via email using a variety of different subject lines
including: "I just need a friend", "Let's talk, my friend!" and
"I'm bored with this life".
The message inside the email is randomly chosen from a list
contained inside the worm, but can include such enticements for the
unsuspecting recipient to explore further as:
"I am a student. I'm studying international relationships. I
would like to find an interesting and active man for serious
relations. Sitting at home it is not for me. I like to go out to
the theater, cinema, and nightclubs."
or
"I am kind, fair, careful, gentle also want to create
family. I love animal (cats, dogs), the literature, theatre,
cinema, music, walks in park."
To complete the deception, the worm can attach one or three
graphic files claiming to be from the young woman looking for love
as well as the malicious executable attachment.
The Bagle-W worm can choose one of three
photographs of a woman to include in the email. Sophos has obscured
the identity of the person in the photograph.
"Users need to think with their heads rather than their heart
before launching any email attachment," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos. "The lure of love has been used by
virus writers in the past to spread their malicious creations, and
no doubt they will do so again."
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.