‘Here you have’ porn virus hits PCs at big companies

It has echoes of the ILOVEYOU bug that infected computers around the world in 2000, but a new virus that has become similarly prevalent relies on the baser instincts of users.

The Windows worm, which has been infecting inboxes across the globe, offers its victims free access to pornographic films. But if they are tempted by the offer and click on the link, which in some variants looks as though it is a PDF document, it actually diverts them to a website containing malware that downloads itself onto the victim's computer.

The programme immediately spreads itself by sending the same message to all the contacts in the victim's address book. It also sabotages the infected computer's security software and spreads to other machines that are part of the user's network.

The subject line of the malicious message is "Here you have" and even though the website to which it connects has been taken down it has caused damage in several large companies. According to the BBC, Nasa, AIG, Disney, Procter & Gamble and Wells Fargo have all reported an outbreak of the worm.

Internet security firm Kaspersky said the latest virus relied on the same human weakness as earlier versions. "The difference with those earlier attacks is that the emails typically carried the malicious file itself and didn't rely on a link to a downloading site... But the technique used to entice users to click on the attachment or malicious link is the same: offer the user something he wants to see."

However, a lot has changed in the world of the internet since the infamous ILOVEYOU bug, and viruses rarely exist for long before security companies come up with a solution. Already both McAfee and Symantec claim to have released patches for the virus. ·