 Harry
Potter worm attempts to
infect USB memory drives - 28th June 2007 |
With just weeks remaining
until the release of the last ever Harry Potter novel there have been
warnings of a new computer worm exploiting Potter-mania around the world.
The “W32/Hairy-A” worm can
automatically infect a PC when users plug-in USB drives, which carry a
file posing as a copy of the eagerly anticipated novel, "Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows". If the users have allowed USB drives to 'auto-run'
they will see a file called
“HarryPotter-TheDeathlyHallows.doc”
>Inside this Word document file
is the simple phrase "Harry Potter is dead." The worm then looks for other
removable drives to infect.
After infecting Windows
computers, the worm creates a number of new users - namely the main
characters from JK Rowling's celebrated series of books about student
wizards: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.
After logging in, users are
shown the following message via a batch file:
read and repent
the end is near
repent from your evil ways O Ye folks
lest you burn in hell...JK Rowling
especially
In addition, every time
infected users open Internet Explorer they will find their start page has
been redirected to an Amazon.com web page selling a spoof book entitled
"Harry Putter and the Chamber of Cheesecakes".
Corpex advises email users not to open any suspicious emails as they may
contain infectious viruses and to protect their computers with
virus and
spam
filters.
Story
Source: Sophos
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