Monday,
October 1, 2001 |
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Article |
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Vote Virus seeks
opinion, then deletes files
Elinor Mills Abreu
SECURITY
experts on Monday warned of a brand new virus masquerading as a program
that will allow persons to vote whether the USA should go to war over
the deadly Sept. 11 hijacker attacks, but which deletes computer files
instead.
The ‘Vote Virus’ is
spreading via e-mail to users of Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook e-mail
program, said Simon Perry, vice president of security solutions at
Computer Associates International Inc.
The virus appears with
the subject line: "Peace between America and Islam!" and the
body of the e-mail reads: "Hi. Is it a war against America or
Islam!? Let’s vote to live in peace!" Perry said.
When the attachment
entitled "WTC.exe" is opened, the virus deletes all files on
the computer’s hard drive and sends copies of the e-mail to every
address listed in the computer’s address book, he said.
The virus also defaces
any Web pages that are hosted by an infected computer to read:
"America ... few days will show you what we can do!!! It’s our
turn Zaker is so sorry for you."
The virus is believed
to be the work of an opportunist and not associated with the Sept. 11
jetliner attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in which more
than 6,000 people are believed to be dead or missing.
"There is no
evidence that this is related to those who carried out the
attacks," Perry said.
‘We feel this is
likely to get quite a high pickup in that a lot of people are going to
click on this,’ he said. "If the news about this doesn’t get
out before people get their e-mails, they’re at risk."
Perry said he expects
there will be more socially engineered viruses created in the future
that will take advantage of people’s interest in the attacks and the
subsequent political and military repercussions.
"What this is a
sick sense of humor," Perry said. "Chances are this is not any
kind of cyber-terrorism. It’s just cyber terror."
As many as 10 large
corporate customers of Computer Associates have been infected since the
virus first appeared Monday morning, Perry said. Researchers do not know
where it originated from but it has not yet hit Europe and Asia, he
said.
Computer Associates is working on
software that will enable its Innoculate anti-virus software to detect
the new virus and prevent it from infecting a computer, Perry said.
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