WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A dangerous new email worm which analysts say is a combination of previously released successful work is quickly spreading across the Internet with the potential to create great havoc.
According to an Internet security firm, the new worm called the "W32/Nimda.A-mm" was released almost to the exact minute of the one-week anniversary of last Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC). Several hackers had called for cyberattacks against Arab and Islamic sites in "retaliation" for the terror attacks.
The uniqueness of this new virus is that in order for it to infect a computer, the user just has to click on the subject line, or visit a web page housed on an infected server. The virus reportedly arrives from both known and unknown email addresses and no action beyond opening the email is required for it to infect the recipient's computer. Thus, the virus tends to spread rapidly.
An alert issued by TruSecure reads: "The rate of growth and spread is exceedingly rapid -- significantly faster than any worm to date and significantly faster than any variant of Code Red."
The alert also says: "We cannot discount the coincidence of the date and time of release, exactly one week to [probably to the minute] as the World Trade Center attack."
But the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Justice Department say that as of yet, they have no indication that this worm is related to the WTC attacks. "There has been no indication that this is linked [to Tuesday's] attack," said FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman. "That is the question of the day."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft speaking at a press conference also said that there is "no evidence" linking the worm "to the terrorist attacks of last week".
Computer experts are also probing the name of the worm, "Nimda", to determine its origin. Nimda is "admin" spelled backwards, which in shorthand usually stands for "system administrator".
Some experts pointed out that NIMDA is also the name of an Israeli defense contractor.
Experts are still analyzing the worm and they suggest that currently the only way to avoid the virus is to disable scripting and refrain from opening any e-mail that is unexpected, or whose subject line do not relate to any on-going conversation.
