Anna virus author comes forward

Published: 15 February 2001 y., Thursday
A Dutch virus writer known as OnTheFly admitted Tuesday to writing the Anna Kournikova virus, as Excite@Home compiled evidence against a subscriber in the Netherlands who is believed to be the same person."I didn't do it for fun," OnTheFly stated in a Web posting Tuesday. "I never wanted to harm the people who opened the attachment. But after all: it's their own fault they got infected." The statement confirmed that OnTheFly used a readily available virus-writing tool, known as the Vbs Worm Generator, to create the Anna Kournikova virus, but exonerated the tool's author of aiding him. Meanwhile, a source at Excite@Home has acknowledged that the company is trying to identify and ban a Dutch subscriber who appears to be OnTheFly. A previous virus, known as Iwa, had been posted to the alt.comp.virus.source.code newsgroup using Excite@Home Netherlands' network."We are working on it," said the Excite@Home source, who asked not to be named. "It is a clear violation of the acceptable use policy. We will come down hard and fast."The information connecting OnTheFly and the Excite@Home subscriber had first been found by Richard Smith, chief technology officer of the Privacy Foundation and a key online detective in the Melissa virus case two years ago. Also known as VBS/SST, VBS_Kalamar and VBS/OnTheFly, the Anna Kournikova virus initially poses as an attachment-- AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs--that has been included in an e-mail with one of several similar subject lines.
Šaltinis: two.digital.cnet.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

"Goner" Virus Can Use ICQ To Spread

A brand new worm slithering through the Web is getting passed by Microsoft Outlook home and businesses users and is so bad it has the potential of wiping out complete files. more »

Court: U.S. law trumps domain decisions

Decisions by international arbitrators in cybersquatting cases can be challenged in U.S. court, an appeals panel has ruled. more »

Business users victims and villains in Goner outbreak

Business users were the worst offenders in this week's spread of the Goner worm and many firms were slow to update antiviral protection during the outbreak. more »

New Zealand Medical Journal Scraps Paper For Web

Ending 114 years of tradition, one of New Zealand's oldest journals will move entirely to the Web and cease paper publication next year. more »

Internet World Fall 2001 means business

The unrelenting momentum of the Internet as a tool for employing creative and cost-effective new ways of doing business will be the driving theme of next week's Internet World Fall 2001 trade show in New York. more »

PCs Still Rule the E-Commerce Roost

According to research from GartnerG2, as much as 10 percent of the B2C e-commerce transactions in the United States will be done through devices other than the PC by 2005. more »

Mobile Commerce World: Mobiles outstrip landline usage in Sweden

There are now more active mobile-phone users than landline telephone users in Sweden. more »

The first victims

Philippine Hackers Deface Sites To 'Expose Flaws' more »

Memo details Microsoft response in EU case

Microsoft denied European Union (EU) allegations that it violated antitrust rules and misused its dominance of the computer industry. more »

Opera 6.0 for Windows Released

Opera Software has officially released Opera 6.0 for Windows. more »