Storm worm announces World War III

In view of the recent Iranian rocket tests, the news that the US army has marched into Iran sounds pretty credible – it is of course all lies. Using email subject lines such as "Occupation of Iran", "The World War III has already begun" [sic] and "Washington prefers to shoot first", the authors behind the storm worm are hoping to tempt curious users onto a website from which Windows PCs can be infected with the well-known malware using various browser exploits and executables disguised as videos.

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The storm worm team has been consistently harassing users for the last year and a half. Sometimes it turns up in the form of a Valentine's Day card, other times at Christmas or Halloween, and it regularly puts in an appearance on politically-important occasions or in the wake of natural disasters. It gained it's nickname from the latter, as a messenger of bad tidings relating to hurricane Kyrill.

The usual security tips should help protect against storm worm infection. Don't open un-requested email attachments, never execute files from dubious websites and always keep your anti-virus software up to date. Further tips on protection from malware can be found on heise Security's anti-virus pages.

See also:

• New Storm Worm Variant Spreading, Alert from US-CERT
• Storm Worm update: Fake news on World War III, Alert from Websense

(trk)