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Valentine's Day "Storm Worm" Virus Coming

by Terrence O'Brien on January 17, 2008 at 06:22 PM

Storm Clouds
...And the Storm Worm strikes again. Like a computerized Tet Offensive, the team behind the now infamous Storm Worm uses holidays as an excuse to launch attacks on unsuspecting e-mailers. Christmas, New Year's, and now the computer criminals are prepping for an electronic Valentine's Day massacre.

The nature of Valentine's Day may make the attack much less effective. New Year's and Christmas are holidays in which people often reach out to family and friends they don't speak to on a regular basis, where as Valentine's tends to be celebrated privately by couples.

The attack is also not very sophisticated and can be easily thwarted by even the least computer savvy of users. The worm presents itself in the form of an e-mail with a Valentine's Day subject and a body consisting of a simple IP address. Clicking on the IP address takes you to a page that displays a heart and the message "your download should begin shortly." If your download doesn't automatically start it instructs you to click a download link and run the file.

The attack probably won't be as successful or as widespread as past outbreaks, but some sad lovers are sure to be infected.

From Ars Technica

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Tags: security, storm worm, StormWorm, valentine's day, Valentine'sDay, virus, worm

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