'Love Bug' threatens email servers

An internet worm, the effects of which are even more virulent than Melissa, has been unleashed onto the internet.

The virus has already hit hundreds of UK businesses including shopping portal Shopsmart.com, an NHS trust and three blue-chip companies.

The Love Bug, so called because infected emails have the header 'I love you', contains an attachment that will affect users if opened.

The virus, which is currently being analysed, tries to connect to an Internet Relay Chat channel and also changes a user's registry setting.

Like the Melissa virus, if a user has Outlook, Love Bug will try to send itself to everyone in a user's address book, once the attachment has been opened.

Users should update antivirus software and delete messages with the subject line 'I LOVE YOU'. An infected message contains a file called LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs.

Alex Shipp, the person who discovered the worm and an antivirus technologist at Messagelabs, said the email application service provider had seen 1200 copies of the Visual Basic Script (VBS) virus during a period of two hours.

"The growth of the virus, which has taken down web servers, has been explosive," said Shipp. "It's spreading much faster than Melissa."

Jack Clark, European antivirus product manager at Network Associates, confirmed the existence of the worm and said the antivirus software vendor is handling multiple calls about it taking down email servers.

"If you're cavalier you may get caught out," said Paul Ducklin, head of research at antivirus software vendor Sophos, adding that users who follow good security practice would remain unaffected.

"VBS files are like batch files on steroids," said Ducklin, who added that users should consider whether they need Windows Scripting.