Three Christmas Worms -Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J

Three new worms with Christmas messages that try to trick users have just appeared. The three worms -Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J- reach users in an email with the following characteristics:

– Subject: “Merry X-Mas!” and “Happy New Year!”.

– Message text: “Happy New Year and wish you good luck on next year!”, “Mery Chrismas & Happy New Year! 2005 will be the beginning!”

– Zip file attachment called: pif, com, scr or bat.

Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J also copy themselves to the Windows System file with the name DEC25.exe.

Given that we are in the Christmas season, many users may open these files thinking that they are festive greetings. The appearance of these three variants coincides with the massive spread of Zafi.D which is now the malicious code most frequently detected by Panda ActiveScan.

Panda Software will provide more information shortly.

Given the likelihood of users encountering Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J, Panda Software advises all users to treat emails received with caution and keep their antivirus solutions up-to-date. Panda Software clients already have at their disposal the corresponding updates to detect and remove these new viruses.

Users can scan their computers online for free with Panda ActiveScan, available at http://www.pandasoftware.com