The Kama Sutra
worm, also known as Blackworm, Nyxem, and Blackmal, is a type of
malware
Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...
(malicious software) that infects PCs using
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
.
Discovered January 16, 2006, Kama Sutra was designed to destroy common files such as
Microsoft Word,
Excel
ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...
, and
PowerPoint documents when each computer's calendar hit February 3 and on the 3rd of each following month.
The worm arrived via e-mail, enticing computer users with promises of sexy pictures. The subject lines included "School girl fantasies gone bad", "Hot Movie", "Crazy illegal Sex!" and "
Kama Sutra pics". When users clicked on the attachment, the machine became infected. Once executed, the worm can corrupt and overwrite the most common Windows file types, .doc, .pdf, .zip, and .xls, among others; the data are changed and become unrecoverable. The worm also tries to disable
antivirus software.
See also
*
Computer worm
A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wil ...
References
*
External links
CNN:Kama Sutra worm hits homeSymantec Security alert
{{Hacking in the 2000s
Computer worms