Sex sells and the new internet worm (Nyxem-E) nick-named the "Kama Sutra worm" because it spreads under the guise of pornographic content, has leap-frogged lesser viruses reaching top-spot on world virus charts.
Nyxem-E aka Kama Sutra is a mass-mailing worm which attempts to disable security-related and file-sharing software and destroys files of certain types. When run on a Windows PC, the worm copies itself to shared network locations, and sends itself to e-mail addresses found on the target computer. Nyxem-E, according to F-Secure, is programmed to disable anti-virus and firewall software, and delete certain files including Office documents, on the third day of every month.
The Kama Sutra worm arrives as an e-mail attachment, with different subject lines including "School girl fantasies gone bad," "The Best Videoclip Ever," "A Great Video," "give me a kiss," "Fwd: Photo," "Fw: Sexy," "You Must View This Videoclip!" "Miss Lebanon 2006," etc. The text differs; it may include references to the Kama Sutra - the ancient Sanskrit book on sex and related matters.
F-Secure has reported a steady stream of Nyxem worms from all over the world, and has said that at last call the worm showed 510,000 infected systems.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos, said that the Kama Sutra worm uses a dated technique to entice users by promising pornography, and that the worm lacks the sophistication of recent Trojan horse-style viruses.
Security experts have advised users to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date, and be wary whilst opening e-mail attachments.
Nyxem-E aka Kama Sutra is a mass-mailing worm which attempts to disable security-related and file-sharing software and destroys files of certain types. When run on a Windows PC, the worm copies itself to shared network locations, and sends itself to e-mail addresses found on the target computer. Nyxem-E, according to F-Secure, is programmed to disable anti-virus and firewall software, and delete certain files including Office documents, on the third day of every month.
The Kama Sutra worm arrives as an e-mail attachment, with different subject lines including "School girl fantasies gone bad," "The Best Videoclip Ever," "A Great Video," "give me a kiss," "Fwd: Photo," "Fw: Sexy," "You Must View This Videoclip!" "Miss Lebanon 2006," etc. The text differs; it may include references to the Kama Sutra - the ancient Sanskrit book on sex and related matters.
F-Secure has reported a steady stream of Nyxem worms from all over the world, and has said that at last call the worm showed 510,000 infected systems.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos, said that the Kama Sutra worm uses a dated technique to entice users by promising pornography, and that the worm lacks the sophistication of recent Trojan horse-style viruses.
Security experts have advised users to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date, and be wary whilst opening e-mail attachments.
