Security news16 December 2004
Worms strip the glitter from Christmas email messages, says Sophos
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| Paul Ducklin dares users to adopt the retro-cool chic of ASCII email this Christmas. |
The glitter has already been stripped from snazzy Christmas email messages by this week's W32/Zafi-D worm, warns Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against viruses and spam. The latest variant in the Zafi family, which seems to originate from Hungary, sends emails with attachments which contain a Christmas surprise of a most unsatisfactory sort.
Other viruses in recent days, such as the W32/Atak-I and W32/Atak-J worms, have also adopted the disguise of seasonal greetings in an attempt to spread.
"Email offers a range of funky digital ways to pass on your best wishes," said Paul Ducklin, Head of Technology, Asia Pacific for Sophos. "But you can be as polite, incisive, witty, humble, risque, funky, caring - you name it - in words as you can in any number of HTML, JPG, EXE or SCR files."
Ducklin is challenging computer users to be daring this Christmas and - if they wish to send email greetings - to send them as plain text ASCII.
"If anyone tells you that you're being an old-timer, just tell them that ASCII is the new binary and raise your eyebrows knowingly. With the right fashion pressure, we can put HTML email out to pasture by early 2005," said Ducklin.
Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways 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.
