Computers Hit by Sexually Transmitted Disease

Baldwin Louie — Thu, 10 May 2001 15:00:00 -0700

As if Europe weren't giving Australian media moguls a hard enough time, three Dutch teenagers are claiming to be behind the "Homepage" worm that had Australian parliamentarians staring at hardcore porn. And this on the 100th anniversary of that parliament's first session no less. According to Spiegel Online, which was on the story all day yesterday, covering it earlier and more thoroughly than most other European outlets, one parliamentarian received the worm-bearing e-mail "10 times in 10 minutes".

But merely receiving the e-mail with the subject line "Homepage" and the message "Hi! You've got to see this page! It's really cool ;O)" won't do a thing to your computer, your browser or your innocent, unblemished eyes. You could hit delete, trash the attachment labelled "homepage.html.vbs" and that would be that. You've actually got to be dang fool enough to open the attachment for the Visual Basic Script to kick into action, meaning it will, much like the recent Anna Kournikova worm, send itself to everyone listed in your address book and automatically steer your browser to one of four porn sites.

"I do not understand how the companies let this one get through," Simon Wiseman, an information security specialist, tells the Guardian. "It is not even as if the virus had to try very hard, so it just shows how easy it is to leave little gaps that someone will get into." Echoes Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a Wired News report: "It's pretty frustrating to see users being duped by the same old ruse time and time again; especially when you consider that a combination of safe computing practice and common sense could easily prevent these types of viruses from spreading."

But on the worm rolled. Through several financial institutions in the City, according to the Guardian, not to mention more than a few media companies. Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at Helsinki-based F-Secure, tells the Standard that about 500,000 computers worldwide have been affected, while UK-based MessageLabs estimated that the worm was spreading at a rate of about 100 copies per minute in Europe.

The proud claim of those three Netherlands teenagers – that they wrote the thing to drum up business for the porn sites and to "open a new career path for them in 'sneak advertising'" – has not been confirmed, but as Dave Kroll, director of security research at anti-viral company Finjan, tells Wired News: "You could call this a sick form of viral marketing."

New Worm a Marketing Ploy?
Wired News

'Homepage' worms its way through Asia, Europe at a rapid pace
The Standard

Homepage spreading faster than Kournikova worm
The Register

Pornographic email virus exposes security failings
The Guardian

Australiens Parlamentarier surfen auf Pornoseiten
Spiegel Online

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Computers Hit by Sexually Transmitted Disease