Email Virus Attacks Anti-Spam Organizations

Anti-spam organizations have now become the target of a new Internet worm that attempts to knock their sites offline with a crippling data barrage. The worm/virus program comes as an attachment to an e-mail purporting to be from a woman named Wendy who details an erotic encounter and then offers naked photographs.

The worm reportedly attacked anti-spam organization Spamhaus on Monday.

Clicking the attachment triggers the virus which then sends itself to other email addresses stored in the infected computer.

The worm can also turn the affected PC into a “zombie”, which can then be remotely commanded to bombard one of a select group of targets, such as Spamhaus, with a disabling blizzard of data — a so-called denial-of-service attack.

In a new twist, a follow-up e-mail is sent to the infected user stating that an order for a CD containing images of child pornography will be delivered to their postal address.

To stop the order, the e-mail advises, they should respond to what appears to be an e-mail address for billing complaints, but which is actually an e-mail for one of the eight targeted anti-spam organizations.

Virus and security experts believe the worm, W32/Mimail-L, is the work of a spam e-mail peddler bent on destroying organizations that try to deal with email spam, the torrents of get-rich-quick schemes and body-enhancement deals that clog in-boxes daily.

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