A new Internet worm named "Bin Laden" has begun spreading across
China, but has not caused serious damage so far, according to
today's China Daily.
The new worm appears in the attachment of the e-mail as
"BINLADEN-BRAZIL.EXE," explained Xia Ji, a senior engineer with
Beijing-based Kingsoft
CO. Ltd.
Such an .exe file will generate a great variety of other files,
which will be very difficult to totally delete once opened, Xia
said, quoted by Wednesday's China Daily.
However, the "Bin Laden" worm will not cause a fatal crash. But it
may occupy part of system resources and therefore slow down a
computers' running speed.
The "Bin Laden" virus spreads mainly through the popular on-line
chatting software "ICQ," said Ma Jie, a technician with Beijing
Rising Technology, one of the country's leading anti-virus software
developers. The virus can automatically search ICQ's e-mail
addresses and send infected mail.
According to the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center
in Tianjin, the new viruses named after Bin Laden, the prime
suspect of the September 11 tragedy, have emerged since the US-led
forces launched raids against the Taliban regime last month. When
computers are infected, chatting boxes with jeering words against
the US president George W. Bush will appear on the screens when
they are started.
(China
Daily November 21, 2001)