Sasser worm disguises as "fix"

A fast-spreading computer worm called "Sasser" hit personal computers around the world, causing infected systems to reboot without warning and disrupting banking and other business in one of the biggest virus-like attacks on the Internet since last summer. The worm, which first struck over the weekend and is already on its fourth variant, exploits a flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system identified in mid-April, computer security experts said. Unlike previous Internet worms, Sasser enters and infects vulnerable PCs without any action on the part of the user, allowing it to spread quickly, they said.

By Monday afternoon, computer security companies were also warning of a new twist on the virus, an email, claiming to be from an antivirus company with an attachment purporting to fix Sasser infections, that was actually a new form of the widespread, email-clogging Netsky virus.

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