The newly discovered worm spreads via email using messages such as:
Watch Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt cought on TAPE! SEXY CLIP! WATCH IT!
Ourexperts believe that “Agent Hacker” (the author of worm) iscapitalizing on possible friendship of two celebrities and media’sinterest to it. There has been presumption that Pitt and Jolierelations might be the main reason of recent breakdown between Pitt andhis ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, widely know for her performance in“Friends”.
Once the attached file, Clip.zip, is opened and executed the worm will attempt to spread to other email users.
Theworm also attempts to spread via file-sharing networks using a varietyof salacious sounding filenames like PORNO.exe, XXX.exe, Naked WWEDivas.exe, Naked Britney.exe, Naked Celebrity.exe, and Celebuncensord.exe. It also tries to launch the distributed denial ofservice attack on Microsoft’s security update website. Additionally,the “Ahker-F” worm attempts to disable security-related software onWindows computers and block access to anti-virus websites.

Yahoo Messenger has become one of the first targets for hackers trying to steal some vulnerable private information from unsuspected users. The first phishing attack on Yahoo Messenger tries to trick users into giving up information that would enable the attackers to access their accounts.

Usually, Yahoo Messenger users get a link to fake Yahoo site, which looks exactly the same as the real one. The site asks them to login using their Yahoo username and password. This phishing attack comes by way of unsolicited IM addresses though the next time phishing attacks could use existing buddy lists.
Phillip Patterson, WinSoftware Senior Security Expert, says: “this year we’re facing the unexpectedly high growth in IM worms and attacks, organizations can no longer afford to leave their IM users unprotected and unmanaged. ”

It’s worth to mention that other messaging clients are also the target for attacks, though not phishing scams. Earlier this year Microsoft’s MSN Messanger was hit with a series of rapidly developing worms caller “Kelvir”.

The bounds of damage cannot be yet estimated, though experts say that the damage is supposed to be limited since only Yahoo Messenger was attacked.

Hackers steal personal information of 59,000 people, affiliated with California State University, are the latest to have their identities nicked by hackers.

In the raid, hackers gained access to the victims' names and Social Security numbers.

Identity theft is considered the nation's fastest-growing crime and last year more than 9.9 million Americans were victims of cyber thieft "hackers".

The University is not sure if the data was nicked to be sold on, or if it was just a student who was getting a kick out of having illegal access to the server.

Apparently the hacker installed software to store files on the system and then tried to break into other computers.

Last April, hackers broke into the University of California’s network and stole confidential information on about 380,000 students, teachers, employees.

Nowadays a lot of companies doesn't use any security software to protect their personal data and their customers personal information. And still it would be a problem for users and "backdoor" for hackers.

WinSoftware spam and virus laboratory warn computer users to be on guard against keyboard-logging Trojan horses, as police have prevented the attempt to steal £220 million from the London offices of a Japanese bank.

It’s worth to mention that the issue concerns not only large corporations and organizations which are the most obvious victims of this kind of malware. Small business and home users also remain vulnerable to this kind of crime, while they are still affected by different worms, trojans and other kind of malware programs, that install them selves on their systems. They may spy on everything that occurs on the computer — including secretly capturing every keypress and sending them to criminal hacking gangs.

The number of viruses, worms and trojans have dramatically rose within the last few years. Todaiy we face the need to deal with 15 new malware programs daily, while only 2 years ago the number was 5-6 ,“says Philip Patterson, WinSoftware Senior Security Expert , “ Today whether you have a reliable protection of your system is a matter of whether your business is a successful one or not. Hackers gangs are actively trying to steal information and empty bank accounts.”

According to last media reports, a high–tech hackers gang somehow gained access to bank’s computer system. Police does not inform about the way criminals did it in order to avoid the same attempts in future, but some speculations in mass madia prove that the most likely they’ve used the keyboard logging Trojan horse in order to track all the activity on desktop computers at the bank by capturing the keypresses. The plan was to transfer the stolen money to 10 independent accounts around the world. Police in Israel are said to have arrested a man whose account had been the intended recipient of some of the money, but it appears the robbery failed and the bank suffered no financial losses as a result of the hacking.

The British banking industry has published information about the measure to be taken in order to stay secure online at www.banksafeonline.org.uk .

It's been almost five years since the original worm VBS/Lovelet (Also known as "Iloveyou" or "The love bug") threatened the worldwide online community. Experts at WinSoftware virus laboratory have recently discovered another one email virus with using the same approach to infect the unprotected systems.

The recently discovered W32/Assiral-A worm spreads via email and has the following characteristics:
Subject: Re: LOV YA!
Body:Kindly read and reply to my LOVE LETTER in the attachments :-)
Attachment:LOVE_LETTER.TXT.exe

If user will launch the attachment, the worm will attempt to copy itself onto computer and send it to other computers, then it will open a webpage on Geocities. The worm will also drop the file containing the following text onto the infected computer:

Greetz from LARISSA.B!
I will survive,
In this moment in time.
You computer will crash,
So, you will be mine.
I never crash,
I never fail.
So, in this moment in time,
I will surive…
- LARISSA AUTHOR — 5-15-05

The worm uses old trick of pretending to be a romantic love letter and inexperienced customers sometimes fall into trap.

WinSoftware recommends to use up-to-date antiviral software like WinAntiVirus Pro 2005. Find our more on WinAntiVirus Site.