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This Just In: New Worm Poses As Breaking News
David Utter
Staff Writer
2005-06-29
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The new worm making the rounds poses as a variety of purported breaking news stories online.
The W32/Kedebe-F worm spreads via e-mail and carries an attachment that, when launched, will cause a variety of system problems, according to Sophos Labs.
Kedebe-F will attempt to mail itself to everyone in the system's address book using its own e-mail engine, delete files from the computer, and make changes to the registry.
The worm can arrive in an assortment of e-mail messages, citing false topics like Michael Jackson's death or a conspiracy theory about the death of Pope John Paul II:
someone sent me this document which is stolen from a secret government body and deals about John Paul's death. It says he was killed by two 'doctors' who were hired by some government bodies. The text attached contains all the story behind his death and who these doctors are.
"Hackers are constantly trying to dupe computer users into running malicious code with the promise of breaking news stories," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"Internet criminals have no respect for taste and decency. All they're interested in is making money, and other computer users' lives a misery," continued Cluley. "We wouldn't be surprised to see other public figures having their names abused by virus writers and spammers in the future."
This worm does not appear to be spreading quickly in the wild, and Sophos has assigned it a low risk rating. As always, computer users should ensure their antivirus software engine and signature files are up to date.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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