‘Dorf’ Spams Behind Masks of Love and Greetings

Security experts at SophosLabs, the global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis center of Sophos have alerted about a large new malicious attack targeting Internet users, taking off since 14:00 GMT.

Sophos warned, the new variants of the Dorf family of worms, earlier circulating news of death resulting from the European storms, are now appearing with false messages of love and greetings.

The spam campaign is using a variety of subject titles, such as "You're So Far Away", "Together You and I", "So in Love", "I Dream of You", "Dream Date Coupon", "A Bouquet of Love" and "Cuddle Up".

When the e-mail recipient opens the attachment it activates the worm, which subsequently sends itself to the list of addresses stored on the infected PC. Analysts believe the worm would try to download more malicious code from the Internet meant to take control of the system, convert it into a zombie computer, and then use it to trigger off spam mails on behalf of hackers.

By using Sophos' anti-spam products it is possible to tap the spam mails and block them before reaching users' inboxes. In addition, anti-virus experts have done an assessment of worms and defended customers from them by using Behavioral Genotype Protection (BGP). The BGP has labeled the malware as Mal/HckPk-A.

According to Graham Cluley, this malware attack is currently taking its round against online users all over the world, inundating PCs of innocent users with spam. The senior technology consultant for Sophos was making a statement that Itweek published on January 25, 2007.

He continued to say that people must think before they click attachment files. True enough it is tempting to open a greeting card or a message from someone dear but following emotions can sometimes bring trouble. The optimum defense can be commonsense added with up-to-date anti-virus software and e-mail filtering systems.

Sophos also recommends business enterprises to update their corporate virus protection and install consolidated solution at their e-mail gateway to protect against spam, spyware and malware.

In its annual Security Threat Report, Sophos has discussed the hackers increased use of trojans to facilitate spamming.

Related article: “Loopholes did not cause online banking thefts”: ICBC

» SPAMfighter News - 1/31/2007