Sober worm offshoot trades on Paris Hilton, FBI

There is no Easter Bunny, and that’s not a real Paris Hilton video in your e-mail box. Nor is the FBI likely to be e-mailing you to ask you questions about visiting illegal Web sites.

A new variant of the Sober worm made the network rounds Tuesday, attempting to entice people into clicking on attachments purporting to be threats from the law enforcement agency or video clips of the hotel heiress and her reality TV co-star Nicole Richie.

Antivirus companies said the worm gained some traction over the weekend and on Monday. It’s a minor modification of the “Sober” virus that has flared up several times over the past year. But this latest variant, graded as a medium-level threat, appeared to be trailing off as security providers have responded.

“This one is virulent and will reproduce itself easily but does not have much of a payload,” said David Perry, the global director of education at antivirus company Trend Micro. “For the time being, this particular strain is probably done.”

Full article: C|net news.com