Security news10 November 2004
Bored computer virus offers to play a musical tune, Sophos reports
Anti-virus experts at Sophos have identified a new computer virus which complains of being bored and offers to play a musical tune, whilst secretly opening a backdoor for hackers.
The W32/Aegi-A virus hunts for executable files to infect on hard drives and floppy disks, and opens a backdoor to allow remote hackers access to affected Windows computers.
At certain times of the day, W32/Aegi-A will display a message box saying "<Computer name> is very bored, play some music ?". If the user chooses "Yes", the virus attempts to infect the local disk drives again.
"Some infected users may think that they have a joke program installed on their PCs when they see the message about the computer being bored," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "The good news is that a virus this obvious is never likely to be as significant a threat as some of the fast-spreading internet worms we have seen this year."
"The virus experts at Sophos were hoping this virus would liven up their day with a merry tune when they were testing it under laboratory conditions," continued Cluley. "Unfortunately the virus wasn't telling the truth. It doesn't play a tune despite its promise, and sadly has no multimedia capabilities at all."
Although only a small number of instances of the virus have been sighted so far, Sophos recommends companies protect their computers with a consolidated solution to thwart the virus and spam threats as well as secure their desktop and servers with automatically updated anti-virus protection.
