Computer Virus Spews Right-Wing Spam

Tuesday, May 17th 2005, 10:26 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ A computer virus spewed neo-Nazi-tinged spam in English and German into inboxes over the weekend. The virus, first spotted on Thursday, sends out a blast of e-mail to addresses found on infected PCs.

Most of these messages contain links to news stories with content that ``smells of right-wing political rhetoric,'' said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of McAfee Inc.'s antivirus emergency response team. But a small percentage contain links to a Web site that tries to infect visiting machines with the virus, he said.

Among the many messages was one with the German subject line ``60 Years of Freedom: Who's Celebrating?'' referencing the end of World War II. Another read: ``Honorable Action'' and contained a link to the Web site of the NPD, Germany's right-wing nationalist political party. One in English carried the subject: ``Dresden Bombing Is To Be Regretted Enormously,'' referring to the Allied attack on the German city during World War II.

Other messages warned of ethnic Mafia groups and the increase in foreigners attending German schools.

The virus, called ``Sober.q'' by McAfee, is the 16th variant in the Germany-oriented Sober virus family that first appeared on the Internet in October 2003. Unlike earlier Sober viruses, this version isn't packaged inside an email attachment. Rather, it's being distributed by a Web site that automatically updates computers infected with the earlier, highly successful ``Sober.p'' variant, which began spreading on May 2.

Other variants of the Sober virus have been designed to send spam, but Gullotto said Sober.q has been much more successful than its predecessors, suggesting more such attacks could be ahead.