Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus and spam analysis centres, have discovered an email virus which poses as a love letter almost five years since the original VBS/Lovelet worm (also known as ILOVEYOU or The Love Bug) used a similar trick to fool computer users around the world.
The W32/Assiral-A worm spreads via email with the following characteristics:
Subject: Re: LOV YA!
Body: Kindly read and reply to my LOVE LETTER in the attachments :-)
Attachment: LOVE_LETTER.TXT.exe
 |
| A typical message sent by the W32/Assiral-A worm. |
If an unsuspecting user launches the attached file the worm will attempt to copy itself to other computers, and open a webpage hosted at Geocities.
 |
| The worm opens a webpage hosted at Geocities. |
Additionally, the worm will drop a file containing the following text onto the infected computer:
Greetz from LARISSA.B!
I will survive,
In this moment in time.
You computer will crash,
So, you will be mine.
I never crash,
I never fail.
So, in this moment in time,
I will surive...
- LARISSA AUTHOR - 5-15-05
 |
| The message dropped by the W32/Assiral-A worm. |
"The Assiral worm uses an old trick to seduce users into believing they may have received a romantic love letter," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "It's almost five years since the infamous Love Bug worm fooled millions of Windows users around the world using a similar tactic - and it seems unlikely that Assiral will have anything like as much impact."
Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways with a consolidated solution to defend against viruses and spam. Businesses should also secure their desktop and servers with automatically updated protection.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.