IF it says it's from the US Central Intelligence Agency or Federal Bureau of Investigation, avoid it like the plague.
An e-mail is going around, claiming to be from the CIA or FBI. And if you open it using Windows, you'll be in big trouble. It's being called the worst computer worm of the year, The Washington Post reported, and lots of people are falling for it.
The bogus e-mail claims the government has discovered you visiting 'illegal' websites and asks you to open an attachment to answer some official questions.
If you do, the worm gets in and your computer gets infected. It can disable security and firewall programs and automatically send similar e-mails to contacts in your address book.
It can also keep you from getting to computer security sites that might help fix the problem, and may even open your computer to intruders who can steal your personal data. The e-mail even includes an authentic phone number for the FBI or CIA. And that has kept government switchboard operators busy in the US.
The worm - named Sober X - has spread so fast that the CIA and the FBI have put warnings on their websites saying they did not send out the e-mail and urging people not to open the attachment. In Europe, the Austrian investigation agency is looking at a flurry of similar bogus e-mails sent in its name. 'This particular virus is a mass-mailer worm and is the largest one we have seen this year,' said a senior official at Symantec, which sells the Norton AntiVirus software. 'It's as bad as it gets. With this particular type of virus on your system, there is a high probability that your personal information will be stolen.'
A virus-research manager at McAfee said his company, which also makes anti-virus software, had logged more than 73,000 consumer computers reporting detection since the worm was discovered Monday. British e-mail security company MessageLabs said it has intercepted more than 2.7 million copies of Sober X and its variants, noting that 'the size of the attack indicates that this is a major offensive'.
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this is a geek BOLO
- TV
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