“Sober” worm attack
The “sober” worm infestation first mentioned here with regard to phony emails purporting to be from the FBI or CIA has become a major problem. The Desktop Pipeline reports
The Sober worm outbreak that began in earnest Tuesday has been dubbed the world’s largest mass-mailed malware attack of 2005 by a Finnish security firm.
“The numbers we’re seeing [with Sober] are just huge. This is the largest e-mail worm outbreak of the year so far,” wrote Miko Hyppönen, chief research officer of F-Secure, in an online alert.
Meanwhile, Denver-based MX Logic said that Sober was accounting for one in every eight e-mails.
If only people would be careful of what they open, these big outbreaks would not happen. Here are some of the fake attachments:
Many of the messages arrive with fake From: addresses of the FBI, CIA, and overseas police agencies such as Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt, for example, to trick users into opening the attachment. Others pose as video clips of pseudo-celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.