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Harry Potter And The Annoying Worm
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-06-29
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Along with the fifth movie and the seventh book about JK Rowling's young wizard, a worm is coming to unwary PC users.
In the old days of computing, some viruses spread through infected floppy discs. In the 21st Century, the equally portable USB drive could be the attack vector for a worm that plays upon the tremendous publicity surrounding the Harry Potter series.
Security firm Sophos said a worm they have dubbed W32/Hairy-A would automatically infect a machine, should a USB drive containing the file be connected to it.
If the PC has been set to allow auto-run, Sophos said a doc file would launch, displaying the words, "Harry Potter is dead." The worm creates new users on the system in the names of Harry, Hermoine Granger, and Ron Weasley.
A batch file runs and shows a message urging the viewer to "repent from your evil ways." Internet Explorer has its start page reset to a page on Amazon.com, for a spoof book called "Harry Putter and the Chamber of Cheesecakes."
"Using such social engineering at this time is a trick dastardly enough for Lord Voldemort himself," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said in the report.
Tags: Computer, Security, Worm, Harry Potter
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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