Monday, 28 June 2004 16:06 EST

Hackers have been increasingly clever in disguising their “worms,” prompting the recipient to bring them to life by clicking on an e-mail attachment that sets off the malicious program. They arrive in users’ mailboxes with an insidious array of subject lines, including warnings purportedly from the user’s computer system administrator: “Your e-mail privileges are being suspended” or “Child pornography has been found on your computer.” The most devious message informs the recipient his computer has been infected by a worm and is being used to send spam. It advises the user to click on the attachment to remove the worm — but of course, opening the attachment actually installs it.

Also increasingly common: by grabbing legitimate e-mail addresses from an infected PC’s address book, worms often manage to make their messages appear to come from a friend or co-worker.

It’s a clever move, since security experts have long advised PC users to open only those attachments sent by people they know.

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