It almost figures. Comes the second anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity and the virus writers have their own way of commemorating the event – new bugs preying on people's patriotism, sentimentality, and fears, according to published reports.
Two new infections with 9/11 references emerged in the past week, according to Reuters. One, Neroma, carries "It's Near 911!" as a subject line and a file, 911.jpg, with "Nice butt baby!" as a description, but if it's opened it deletes files on an infected PC and scans Microsoft Outlook e-mail addresses for more prospective victims.
The other is called Vote.K, Reuters said, this one a variant of a virus that hit the Net right after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Finn security company F-Secure told Reuters the new Vote.K carries a message saying "THE WAR HAS STARTED!," but if it's opened it will delete files, carrying a message, "World Trade Center/We Will Always Remember Those Lost Souls."
British anti-virus company Sophos told Reuters another 9/11-related nuisance is a two-year-old e-mail warning about a fake file-deleting virus called "WTC Survivor" but is once again one of the most popular hoaxes in cyberspace on the second anniversary of the attacks.
"It's stormed to the top of our hoax list in the past few days," said Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley to Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Sobig.F virus which plagued the Internet through most of August disabled itself, as it was programmed to do, on September 10. The bad news is that the next Sobig variant, Sobig.H, was scheduled to premiere on September 11.
