Sophos discovers hooting virus

Anti-virus vendor Sophos has discovered a worm that attempts to send a photograph of an owl to attached network printers. The W32/Hoots-A worm is written in Visual Basic, spreading via network shares. When it infects a computer it attempts to send a graphical image of an owl with the legend O RLY? to a number of predefined print queues. The phrase "O RLY?" is internet slang for "Oh really?", and is often accompanied by a picture of a snowy white owl. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos said this wasn’t the work of a professional virus writer. “Most malware authors these days encrypt their executables with packers in an attempt to make them harder to detect, this one does not. It is also writt...

» eBCVG - 15-05-2006