Malicious virus spreading via bogus FBI, CIA e-mails

Malicious virus spreading via bogus FBI, CIA e-mails
In what is being considered as the nastiest computer virus of the year, a worn named "Sober X" poses an official mail from the CIA or FBI and leaves your hard disk at risk by exposing your personal information to the intruders.

The fraud e-mail mentions that you have logged on to 30 illegal Web sites and hence must answer some official questions in the attachment sent. If you fall into this trap set by the hackers, the PC is attacked by malware which has the capability of immobilizing your security and firewall features. The bogus mail can also be forwarded to the contacts in your address books.

In addition, the virus can also prevent you from accessing computer security Web sites which could come in handy to affix the troubles and permit the invaders to attack you Windows computer and rob your essential personal data.

"Sober X" has spread its vicious wings so wide in a short span of time that both the CIA and the FBI have had to post important warnings on their Web sites clarifying that the e-mails are forged and the attachments sent should not be opened.

To make matters worse, the mail provides genuine contact numbers of FBI or CIA. As a result, the Internet Crime Complaint Center of FBI in West Virginia received over 4,000 complaints about the virus on Monday. On an average, the ICC gets 18,000 complaints per month, according to FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan.

Alfred A. Huger, senior director of engineering at Symantec Corp., which sells Norton AntiVirus software, described the malicious content as a “mass-mailer worm” which on entering a system has a very high possibility of accessing your personal data.

Over 73,000 consumer computers have reported detection since the worm was discovered on Monday, discloses Craig Schmugar, a virus-research manager at McAfee Inc.'s Avert Labs.

Further, the British e-mail security company MessageLabs Ltd. said it has blocked close to 2.7 million copies of Sober and its variants revealing that the size of the attack points out to a major trouble, without doubt one of the most dangerous in the past few months.

Most security firms rated it as a “medium-risk" worm since it was not as extensive as something like the MyDoom that infected computers early last year.

Till now only the PCs with Windows operating system appear to have been affected while the Apple and Linux computers seem to be relatively safe.