Virus - Bin Laden Suicide Hoax

From: John Beaderstadt (beadnot_at_pivot.nyet)
Date: 07/24/04 

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 05:24:11 -0400

Reposted from sci.astro.amateur.

An added bit of interest for this group *may* be the security analyst.
Is this a relation? Can't be the same one, can it?

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin
Laden's
suicide popped up on the Internet on Friday, designed to entice
recipients
to open a file that unleashes malicious software code, security
experts
said.

The virus was attached to a message that was posted on over 30,000
usenet
newsgroups and is not being spread via e-mail, said Web security
vendor
Sophos.

The U.S. government has been hunting for Bin Laden since 2001, holding
him
responsible for masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center
and
Pentagon (news - web sites) on Sept. 11, 2001, but he has not yet been
found.

Chris Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, said the message and
virus
was designed to lure unsuspecting readers into opening a file, similar
to
the Anna Kournikova (news - web sites) virus that enticed readers to
open a
file that unleashed malicious software code.

"If you don't know the person or the origin of a message, you
shouldn't be
opening it," Kraft said.

The fake Bin Laden suicide file, when opened, unleashes a program
called a
Trojan horse that makes it possible for attackers to take over
infected
personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news)
Windows
operating system.

Kraft said the virus itself had already appeared on the Internet
before, but
the virus writer had apparently repackaged it by saying it contained
Bin
Laden's suicide photos.

--------------
Beady's Corollary to Occam's Razor: "The likeliest explanation of any phenomenon is almost always the most boring one imaginable."

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