Security threats Toolkit

Paris Hilton worm spreads

Dan Ilet ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 23 Feb 2005 16:30 GMT

An email worm promising explicit pictures of hotel heiress Paris Hilton is spreading widely, antivirus experts warned on Wednesday.

The mass-mailing worm Sober-K is currently the third most commonly encountered virus, making up 10 percent of all viruses detected in the last 24 hours, Sophos reported.

"This latest variant of the Sober worm may catch out the unwary as they open their email inbox," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Although much-publicised virus outbreaks in the past should have made users more nervous of double-clicking on unsolicited email attachments, some still find it hard to resist. All users should be reminded to follow safe computing guidelines, and PCs should be kept automatically updated with the latest antivirus protection."

The Sober-K worm sends itself in German and English using a variety of subject lines including "Paris Hilton, pure!" and "Paris Hilton SexVideos".

The W32/Zafi-D virus which was released last year, is Sophos's most prevalent virus, accounting for 27.6 percent of all reports in the last 24 hours. The Harry Potter Netsky-P worm is in second position with 22.4 percent.

Hilton shot to prominence after starring in a now notorious home video which became an Internet phenomenon. On the same day that Sober-K was discovered, it was reported that hackers had broken into Hilton's mobile phone and stolen the telephone numbers of celebrities before posting them online.

A second more dangerous worm that uses similar bait, Ahker-C, was also discovered this week.