From: InfoSec News (isnc4i.org)
Date: Thu Dec 08 2005 - 09:05:26 CST

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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.

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