Experts at SophosLabs™, have announced the discovery of the first malware for StarOffice.

The virus (dubbed Stardust), is the first example of malware written in the StarOffice macro language. Macro viruses have mainly affected users of Microsoft Office, but have rarely been seen for non-Microsoft applications.

"The Stardust virus doesn't appear to work very well, and as such poses as close-to-zero threat to computer users as is imaginable," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "It appears that someone attempted to write this virus purely to prove that such a thing was possible, rather than with any serious motive."

It was reported that the virus has a photograph of a porn star, with the message "Vxers love you!!", asking you to download it.

"Clearly whoever wrote this virus is an ardent fan of the Czech porn actress, Silvia Saint," continued Cluley. "The word 'Vxers' is a frequently used phrase in the computer underground for those who are interested in writing and distributing viruses. Miss Saint, however, is probably not similarly attracted to people who sit in their back bedrooms writing malicious computer code."

ArmourPlate Anti Virus service works by scanning your company's email, so stopping email-borne computer viruses before they reach your computer network and employees. Your company's email is filtered through our highly sophisticated, dedicated anti-virus systems located in our data centres in the UK and Germany.

Operating on high performance servers, ArmourPlate Anti Virus deploys software from Sophos, Kaspersky and CyberSoft to ensure maximum protection. At ten-minute intervals, 24x7x365, the system automatically checks for any new virus 'definitions' that the four software vendors may identify.

Source: Various

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