The wave of German spam flooding e-mail boxes this week links back to neo-Nazi Web sites, say anti-virus firms.
The spam, which is related to variants of the Sober virus, bombards e-mail boxes with messages in German. The messages carry links to German Web sites, many of which promote right-wing and offensive content.
Reuters quotes anti-virus experts as saying the worm sent right-wing German messages to millions of computers over the weekend, and that it is a sign that spam has become a tool for propagandists as well as scam artists.
Anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab says the new version of Sober, Worm.Win32.Sober.q, is unable to replicate, but instead sends right wing spam to addresses found on the victim machines.
Kaspersky says Sober.q harvests e-mail addresses from the infected computer, saves these addresses, and then sends spam messages to the addresses harvested, except for addresses that appear to belong to anti-virus vendors and software developers.
The worm also drops a file which contains a message from the author: "Ich bin immer noch kein Spammer! Aber sollte vielleicht einer werden :) In diesem Sinne" (I`m not a spammer yet! But maybe I`ll become one:)
This file also contains links to articles published on the Internet stating that Sober is being used to create botnets - networks of infected machines, which can then be used to send spam.
F-Secure agrees the latest outbreak appears to be related to Sober.N or Sober.P, although these are not the only variants to use German in their e-mail messages.
The company adds that the Sober worm has become the "bane of IT administrators everywhere" since it was first created in October 2003.
"Sober.N has been labelled by some as the most prolific worm of 2005 so far and has frustrated IT administrators the world over," says F-Secure.
"The extent of the outbreak is most certainly a troubling sign in the South African context, where telecommunications costs are high and bandwidth is always at a premium. The magnitude of the outbreak signals a lax attitude toward security, anti-virus and spam management. It has been two years since the last major international worm outbreak and perhaps the lack of hype and headlines has lulled both users and administrators into a sense of complacency."
F-Secure`s latest statistics seem to indicate that the wave of German spam is starting to subside around the world.
Related story:
German spam invades SA
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