Watch out for a special present included with your e-mail Christmas greetings. A mass-mailing worm, W32/Zafi.d@MM or Zafi.d, is making the rounds of e-mail users and is transmitted in the form of a Christmas greeting card with the subject line of either “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” The e-mail message will appear to come from one of your acquaintances.
The messages of good cheer come in 15 different languages and the language is selected, based on the recipient’s -mail address. The worm modifies the system registry of Microsoft Windows computers, automatically self-executing when the computer is rebooted. Zafi will also seek out antivirus and firewall applications, overwriting those programs. The nefarious action of the worm is to open a backdoor on the PC, allowing the system to be turned into a zombie, remotely controlled to send more spam or participate in a distributed denial of service attack on selected websites.
Dave’s Comments
I’ve got as much holiday good cheer as the next person, but e-mailed greeting cards rub me the wrong way, especially at this time of the year. I think that holiday cards should be hand signed and either postal mailed or hand delivered. Take the time to show how much you care for your friends and loved ones, write them a card. Oh, and as for this worm; you know the drill: don’t open any file attachment that you didn’t expect, no matter from whom it comes.
Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
