Cyber security experts are concerned about a virus that cashes in on the Valentine's Day spirit to steal personal data
Cyber security experts are concerned about a virus that cashes in on the Valentine's Day spirit to steal personal data
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A webshot of the malicious mail |
Beware of love mails this Valentine's Day! They could spoil your romantic mood. Mushy emails could hide viruses intended to cause irreparable damage to your computer as well as those of your contacts. If you receive mails from a female with subject lines such as "I Love You Soo Much", "you and me" or "only you", do not open them.
Cashing in on the Valentine Day spirit, cyber crooks have created a new malware that is spreading like wildfire in cyber space. The mail has a link to a website which looks like a romantic Valentine card and automatically allows download of malicious code.
The simple looking page with a big pink heart infects the computer and sends a large amount of contaminated emails to infected user contacts, spreading the virus further. The malicious file is detected as WORM_WALEDAC.AR.
Ethical hacker and cyber security expert Vivek Vohra said, "The trend of spreading a virus by cashing in on festivals and important days is gaining ground. This is a very easy way to fool users and especially on an occasion like Valentine's Day as it carries innocent messages. This virus can corrupt the system and may also infect others systems which are on the contact list of the infected user. A similar virus attack took place last year too when the love bug hit many Indian Internet users."
Abhinav Garg, au00a0 chartered accountant, said, "Last year I got an enticing Valentine Day e-card which corrupted my computer. I had to format my hard disk."
Last year, two deadly virus Nuwar and Valentin.E infected many computers in India. These messages flooded inboxes weeks before Valentine's Day and clicking on the link redirected the user to a site with images of hearts. When this page was clicked, the user was prompted to download malicious file.
Like other variants, this malicious file compromises the security of infected systems by opening random ports and then stealing personal data.
