Oops! Britney is here again

Bernhard Warner

LONDON: Britney Spears can add one more notch to her soaring global

popularity: the perky pop star has become the inspiration for a potentially

destructive email worm touring through cyberspace, security experts said on

Friday.

The bug, labelled variously as "VBS/Britney-A" and "VBS_BRITNEYPIC.A",

is considered low risk because it has infected a small number of computer users

in Europe since it was initially detected on Thursday morning, computer experts

said.

But because the worm carries an attachment masquerading as a picture of the

20-year-old pop idol, security officials were still on alert yesterday.

"Because this says 'Britney Spears' we thought this may have potential to

spread," said Natasha Staley, a spokeswoman for British computer security

firm Sophos Anti-Virus.

The name "Britney Spears" is consistently one of the most popular

search terms on Internet search engines, and the massively successful singer has

been the inspiration behind scores of fan sites.

Britney, Jennifer and Anna Kournikova



Spears is the latest attractive female celebrity to be used by virus writers
hoping to ensnare scores of would-be victims. The singer/actress Jennifer Lopez

was the subject of a minor email virus threat last year.

The reigning queen of celebrity email bugs is still Russian tennis star Anna

Kournikova, computer experts say.

Last May, the so-called "Anna Kournikova" email worm had a nasty

run in the wild.

In that case, the worm crippled computer servers and slowed down Internet

traffic around the world, after unsuspecting computer users clicked on an email

attachment thinking they would see a photo of the pint-sized tennis star.

The author, a Dutch man, was eventually arrested and sentenced last September

to 150 hours of community service. Raimund Genes, European president of computer

security firm Trend Micro, said the Britney Spears virus is much less

sophisticated than the Kournikova worm, which could explain it's relatively slow

infestation.

The worm, he said, carries an attachment labelled ".CHM," which

doesn't look like a photo attachment and could tip off computer users that it's

a hoax.

According to Sophos, the Britney bug spreads via the popular Microsoft

Outlook email program as well as Internet Relay Chat channels on the Internet.

As with Kournikova, it could overload computer servers and slow Internet

traffic.