Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
Graham Cluleyis a British security blogger and the author of grahamcluley.com; a daily blog on the latest computer security news, opinion, and advice...
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Most businesses have been protecting against this for a couple of weeks. Home users who have not updated their software may be at risk if they open unsolicited subject lines.
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Two years ago, the US accounted for over half of all spam sent to the world - now it is less than a quarter, evidence which confirms that more Americans are waking up to the need to protect their home computers from malicious hackers. More and more viruses, worms and Trojan horses are being designed to take over innocent users' computers with the intention of stealing information and sending out junk email campaigns.
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It's important that businesses and home users ensure they are properly protected with automatically updated anti-virus software, and never open unsolicited email attachments. The criminals behind these viruses and Trojan horses don't stop just because it's the holiday season. They are counting on people returning in the New Year and not thinking before opening their email.
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There should be no excuse for any data being lost on February 3 by this worm, but there is always the danger that some home users will not have heard that warning.
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It's bad enough when an individual has data stolen from them by a virus, but a police force being the victim is a real cause for concern. This incident acts as a timely reminder that all organizations need to take computer security seriously. If you allow your employees to put sensitive company data onto their own home computers, you are running the risk that they will not be as well defended as the PCs within your business.
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It could be that more people are using broadband, and that home users are worse at updating their antivirus software,
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We would still love to see a sample of this and determine if this is a potential threat to our customers. It's a little bit disappointing that they are not sharing the sample.
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We have seen a large increase in these types of Trojans targeting online gamers, as role-playing games have become a big business.
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Unlike worms, it doesn't have a capability to replicate itself and so has to be manually spread by being spammed out deliberately, or people downloading it from a Web site.
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Worms and viruses are increasingly being written to steal confidential data from innocent people's computers, to hijack resources, or launch spam or denial-of-service attacks,
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There are fortunes to be made from the dark side of the Internet and spammers who are finding it harder to sell goods via bulk email are likely to turn to other criminal activities,
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There are fortunes to be made from the dark side of the internet, and spammers who are finding it harder to sell goods via bulk email are likely to turn to other criminal activities, ... What the chart reveals is that spammers and virus writers can exploit unprotected computers anywhere in the world to send out their unwanted messages - everyone has a part to play in the fight against spam.
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People who receive this viral email won't necessarily believe that it was intended for them or their company, of course, but they may wish to advise the apparent sender that they have sent the message to the wrong person. If anyone opens the attached file, however, they risk infecting their computer and passing on the pox to others.
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Receiving or reading the emails themselves does not mean you are infected.