X'mas brings new worms

NEW DELHI: Three new worms with Christmas messages that try to trick users have just appeared. Panda Software has issued a alert for the three worms -Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J- reach users in an email.

It poses with a subject, which reads as "Merry X-Mas!" and "Happy New Year!".

The message text reads as "Happy New Year and wish you good luck on next year!", "Mery Chrismas & Happy New Year! 2005 will be the beginning!" The Zip file attachment is called as 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. According to Panda Software, 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.

Given the likelihood of users encountering Atak.H, Atak.I and Atak.J, Panda Software has advised all users to treat emails received with caution and keep their antivirus solutions up-to-date.