A bogus link to a website proved the most frequent virus reported to anti-virus software firm Sophos last month, accounting for almost one in five of calls.
A fake link to a website proved the most frequent virus reported to anti-virus software firm Sophos last month, accounting for almost one in five of calls. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, says: ?The MyParty worm duped computer users by pretending to be a link to a website containing snaps of groovy partygoers. But not everything that ends in dot com is a web address, it can also be an executable file. It was a simple psychological trick and many people fell for it. The message is simple: stop double-clicking on unsolicited email attachments, even if they appear to come from someone you know.?
February also saw the emergence of Coolnow – a worm that infected users of MSN Messenger. Although it did not break into the top ten, Coolnow continues to infect PCs and therefore offers a reminder that virus writers are constantly using new platforms to spread their malicious code. Some 739 new viruses were discovered and protected against by Sophos in February 2002. The total number of viruses Sophos now detects and protects against is 72,569. See www.sophos.com.
