People are being warned about an e-mail virus which pretends to be a message from computer support staff. [Via BBC Tech News]
The Mimail worm arrives in an e-mail claiming to be from the company’s computer support department. In order to trick people into opening the message, it spoofs the domain name of the business’s e-mail address, so a mail to a BBC address would look like admin@bbc.co.uk
The message says that your e-mail account will soon expire and urges you to read the attached information. The attachment, called message.zip, contains an html file which is a copy of the worm. When opened, it searches the computer’s hard drive for e-mail addresses for its next round of victims.
The worm takes advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and could potentially clog mail servers or slow down networks.
Miraz says: I’ve had at least one of these, which was trapped by my Spam filters. It did manage to convince me to open it though. As soon as I saw it suggesting my email address would expire I trashed it. I know when my address will expire and I know how I’ll be alerted to that. This email wasn’t it.
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