Ten Years of Virus Anna Kournikova

A full one decade back since February 10, 2011, a computer virus called Anna Kournikova proliferated across the globe, pledging to provide images of the queen of tennis; however, actually contaminating Windows PCs with a virus-laden e-mail. Nakedsecurity published this on February 11, 2011.

Anna Kournikova virus was distributed through electronic mail displaying the caption, "Here you have, o" as well as providing an attachment called AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs. The suffix in the file name describing the file type indicated that rather than having an image file the attachment had a Visual Basic script.

And while the virus wasn't refined, yet it was capable of proliferating extensively. Moreover, having itself installed it dispatched the same type of e-mails to all the addresses on the user's contact list. Security Company Sophos, which found the creator of the virus as VBS/SST-A, said the worm did no other destruction; nevertheless, it overwhelmed mail servers with messages.

Stated Senior Analyst Paul Wood at Symantec that the virus wasn't merely remarkably inexhaustible, but it as well represented the early indication that a vital change had occurred in the cyber-crime history. He continued that rather than one 'script kiddie' creating and releasing it, the virus was a first worm from several prominent ones that VBSWG a toolkit for writing viruses developed. The VBSWG kit was a first scripting kit that was set in Visual Basic, Wood detailed. V3.co.uk published this on February 11, 2011.

It's believed that the Kournikova virus proliferated fast and in just 5 hours of its release. Says Wood, about 2,900 replicas of the worm became detectable on 290 individual Web-domains.

Said the security researchers, Kournikova, which had been created with a malicious kit, therefore brought about a change within online crime. In the present time, anybody could purchase such kits on the Internet and without much difficulty as also didn't need expert knowledge for writing a destructive PC code.

Meanwhile, over the past decade, the virus' activity has changed significantly, despite that Web-surfers continue to click through spoofed web-links quite innocently. Additionally, web-links are being condensed more-and-more for online crooks to make their task even easier.

Related article: Twin phishing E-Mails Pose from Bank of Hanover

» SPAMfighter News - 2/18/2011