New Virus

[Titans#1]

A SCAM involving fake FBI or CIA emails had unleashed a computer virus that has spread rapidly worldwide, US officials and security experts said

The FBI released a statement on its website noting the agency was not the source of the emails. But experts said that the virus was propagating because the authors made the message appear authentic.

The FBI statement said recipients of this or similar messages "should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited emails to the public in this manner".

The messages appeared to be sent from an email address such as mailfbi.gov, postfbi.gov, adminfbi.gov or a similar address, and directed the recipient to open an attachment to answer a question. The opening of the file activated the virus and caused it to spread to others.

Internet security firm Sophos said similar emails appeared to come from the Central Intelligence Agency, but both contained a strain of the Sober virus that had been spreading worldwide. In a four-hour period yesterday, the worm "has accounted for over 61 per cent of all viruses reported to Sophos, making it currently the most prevalent virus spreading across the world", Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said.

"This variant of the Sober worm may catch out the unwary as they open their email in box this morning.

"Every law abiding citizen wants to help the police with their enquiries, and some will panic that they might be being falsely accused of visiting illegal websites and want to click on the unsolicited e-mail attachment.

"All users should be reminded to follow safe computing guidelines, and PCs should be kept automatically updated with the latest anti-virus protection."

The email stated: "We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal websites", and directed the recipient to open an attachment to respond to questions.

"The FBI takes this matter seriously and is investigating," the law enforcement agency said, urging those receiving emails of this nature to report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center via http://www.ic3.gov .

California-based firm PandaLabs said the virus quickly became the most prevalent spreading around the globe.

One reason for its success was that "this new variant uses social engineering techniques, tricking users into running files that contain the system code", PandaLabs said.

The virus used another trick ? displaying a dialogue box saying that no viruses, Trojans or spyware were found, according to PandaLabs, even though the computer was left unprotected against future attacks.

Experts noted each infection caused a computer to send out new copies of the email to those in the computer's address book.

"The propagation capacity of Sober.AH, means that every time there is a new infection, the chances of receiving an infected email increase exponentially," Luis Corrons, director of PandaLabs, said.

PandaLabs and others noted that some of the emails were being delivered in German to addresses in Europe, purportedly coming from the BKA, the German federal police.

The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Centre, an academic industry partnership, urged Internet users to exercise caution because anti-virus programs might not detect the latest versions of malicious programs.

"Antivirus software does not provide any reliable protection against current threats," SANS said. "Viruses like Sober tend to change every few hours well in advance of AV signature updates. The fact that an attachment did not get marked is no indication that it is harmless."

[Titans#1]

Please post any new virus you may know or hear about in this thread! We don't want members to catch this and not be able to log on to our fantastic forums!

[Super Cronk]

i got a friggin limewire worm that f**** up my registry's on my computer....im getting it fixed today hopefully....seriously do these people that make viruses etc feel proud for doing this ****?

[Queenslander]

i got a friggin limewire worm that f**** up my registry's on my computer....im getting it fixed today hopefully....seriously do these people that make viruses etc feel proud for doing this ****?

its a bunch of lonely nerds who hate the world; because the world hates them. They need to get a life :angry:

[Titanium_BD1103]

Did you really Super Cronk.. I use Limewire now.. I used to use Warez..but that stuffed my computer that I had to clean it.. so I use Limewire now.. may have to update the anti virus software again though it seems...

I agree these people are nerds who have no life and need to find something more constructive to do IMO...

[Super Cronk]

Did you really Super Cronk.. I use Limewire now.. I used to use Warez..but that stuffed my computer that I had to clean it.. so I use Limewire now.. may have to update the anti virus software again though it seems...

I agree these people are nerds who have no life and need to find something more constructive to do IMO...

yeah my brother downloaded something and bam ....your best of ditching limwire man...slows your computer down and your at a big risk of getting a virus. i had uptodate virus stuff yet this worm still got through...no more p2p for me :mine:

[Titans#1]

COMPUTER users were being urged to kill a malicious "old school" software worm poised to destroy their files.

Referred to by a host of names including "Kama Sutra", "Grew", and "Blackworm", the malware virus has bored into countless computers worldwide and is reportedly programmed to come to life after the clocks signal the start of Friday.
"Make sure you scan today, don't wait to find out if you've been infected," warned computer virus expert David Perry of Tokyo-based Internet security firm Trend Micro.

"This is flat-out malicious, destroying files."

The company was providing free real-time virus scans called "Housecall at its website, trendmicro.com.

The worm traveled the Internet in emails and got into computers when recipients clicked on unsolicited messages bearing sender names such as crazygirl, badboy, wizzard, and sometimes promising sexy content.

The worm was given a trigger date of today to allow time for it to spread undetected, Perry said.
"Once it starts destroying files, people will hunt it down and kill it," Perry said.

"I don't expect we will hear of mass destruction for this, because we got notice early in the game."

News of a new virus threat often correlates with a spike in infections, evidently because people check their computers and click on the item to see what it will do, according to experts.

"Most of what people know about viruses doesn't come from science, but from movies or fiction," Perry said.

"People seem to think there will be an animated cookie monster."

"In reality, what it will do is wipe out files. Worse, it overwrites them and that will corrupt the back-up system as well."

People can open any document file to check whether their computer was attacked by the worm, according to experts. If the worm came to life in their system, they will find gibberish in what were formerly text files, Perry said.

We will see Friday how many people report it," Perry said.

"People rarely report in when they miss the boat and get infected."

An atlas of infections reported by visitors to Micro Trend's website showed more viruses uncovered in India than in the United States.

There is a whole virus underground out there," Perry said. "They critique each others' work."

Internet security experts advised computer users to keep updated anti-virus software running on their systems.

The Kama Sutra worm was a "feature-rich virus" that also spread by floppy disks or network sharing, and which was designed to sabotage anti-virus software on computers, Perry said.

"This virus contains stealth technology to knock out your anti-virus software," Perry said. "It goes out and defeats them."

That was why Micro Trend provided live online scans for the worm, according to Perry.

Virus fighters at the company reportedly sort through an average of 1300 new forms of malware monthly.

scan today people!!!

[Kronos]

Just buy a MAC........ problem solved

[Super Cronk]

A mate of mine was on msn and he had a message appear that says: **I HAVE ADDED STARS TO THE URL, SO DONT GO TO IT!!!!**

"Hey you can see who's blocking you on MSN! Download it now http:**//www.block-checker.com"

He said he downloaded the block checker from that site, then i searched google and found out its actually a virus. Im not sure what it does...but it isnt a very nice one sposedly, as the anti virus programs dont pick it up.

[Dakink]

Just buy a MAC........ problem solved

No thanks ;-)