Sixem Worm Striking World Cup

The Football World Cup in Germany is generating a lot of interest among people worldwide. The Sixem worm exploits peoples' interest in the tournament. This worm disguises itself as a mail attachment with a striking or intriguing subject line. The subject line generally encourages a recipient of the mail to open it and run the attachment file.

Worms such as these are spread easily as it uses subject lines that allure a user to respond to it. Warnings about the new e-mail worm using the Football World Cup fever to infect computers have been issued by experts at SophosLabs, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers.

The W32/Sixem-A worm spreads using subject lines such as "Naked World Cup game set", "Soccer fans killed five teens" and "Crazy soccer fans".

The message sent by the worm reads as follows:
Nudists are organizing their own tribute to the world cup, by staging their own nude soccer game, though it is not clear how the teams will tell each other apart. Good photos ;)

Other messages include:
Soccer fans killed five teens, watch what they make on photos. Please report on this all who know.

All these messages claim to come directly from the CNN news organization. Users are made to believe that the messages originate from a genuine source and are enticed into opening and running the attached file. Once the attached file is run, it tries to disable the security software on the infected computer and then spread itself to other e-mail addresses.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos termed the W32/Sixem-A worm to be dangerous, and also warned the users to be careful not to fall victim to the hackers. According to him Internet criminals will come up with new ideas to con avid football lovers as the tournament gets more and more exciting and progresses to the knockout stages.

Related article: Scam Involving Counterfeit Checks Lead to 77 Arrests

» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2006