Happy New Malware

3 Jan 2007

A significant worm outbreak over the new year festivities has put paid to the notion we've seen the end of mass mailing worms just yet.

The Luder email worm (AKA Dref-V and Trojan downloader Tibs-jy, first seen on 30 December, poses as an electronic postcard and clogged up email in-boxes over the last two days after successfully duping the gullible into opening executable email attachments with names such as postcard and Greeting Card.exe. Subject lines such "Happy New Year!", "Fun Filled New Year!" and "Happy 2007!" have been enough to convince the unwary that the messages were electronic greetings celebrating the new year rather than malware.

It's far from the first instance of malware authors attempting to exploit seasonally dulled senses in a bid to spread malware. Two years ago a worm called Wumark-D spread across the net, net security firm Sophos notes. The attachment of infected emails launched a graphic image of nude men and women contorting to form the words "HAPPY NEW YEAR" whilst silently downloading malicious code onto compromised machines, which became agents in spreading the infection.

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