If it's in the news, there's probably a computer virus about it. After computer virus writers failed to get much traction by tying a series of malicious programs to the war in Iraq, now there's a virus that poses as information about the SARS health crisis.
The worm, which has been dubbed "Coronex," is designed to arrive in a potential victim's e-mail inbox with subject lines like "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" or "SARS Virus."
Antivirus firms haven't heard from any customers who say they've been infected by Coronex, and they are optimistic the computer worm won't spread.
Coronex may arrive from a variety of e-mail addresses, including sars@hotmail.com, sars2@hotmail.com, or virus@china.com. Users must click on an attached file for their computer to become infected. The file might also have a variety of names, such as SARS.exe or Hongkong.exe.
The consequences of infection are familiar--the worm will send copies of itself to everyone in the infected user's e-mail address book.
Users who avoid clicking on such attachments will be safe.
(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2003)
