[ISN] Sober is scheduled to Attack on January 2006

[InfoSec News]

http://www.it-observer.com/articles.php?id=972

By IT Observer Staff
7 December 2005 

The next planned widespread of 2005's most prolific e-mail worm, 
Sober, is scheduled to start on January 5, 2006 based on commands 
hard-coded within the worm. The attack date coincides with the 87th 
anniversary of the Nazi party. 

"This discovery emphasizes the ever-present and often underestimated 
threat of 'hacktivism' -- combining malicious code with political 
causes," said Joe Payne, vice president, VeriSign iDefense Security 
Intelligence Services. 

The company says the attack could have a significant damaging effect 
on internet traffic, as the worm designed to send politically 
motivated spam from tens of millions of e-mail addresses. The next 
phase of the multi-phased Sober worm has been discovered by iDefense 
using reverse-engineering techniques in the most recent version of the 
worm. 

Sober first began spreading about November 15. The computers were 
infected by the worm began sending another version a week later on 
November 22. The last known version uses social engineering techniques 
and posing as emails from the FBI, CIA and other intelligence units.