Virus writers: We know what you're up to

Not wishing to tempt fate, but it appears that virus writers may be becoming a one trick pony. The latest worm to hit the headlines does little to suggest otherwise.

MyLife.M arrives in the user's inbox offering candid shots of Julia Roberts in a smutty screensaver. Very original.

Anna Kournikova, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Catherine Zeta Jones to name a few have all been subjects of virus-bearing emails and yet the virus writers assume this infection method will still bear fruit.

It paints an image of two clueless teens wracking their brains thinking of a cunning new delivery method....

"What about saying the email contains naked pictures of Shakira?"
"Been done..."
"Jennifer Lopez?"
"Done..."
"Catherine Zeta Jones?"
"Done..."
"Julia Roberts?
"It's crap but it'll do..."

How long is this going to continue? Will they give up before we get to 'naked pictures of Oprah Winfrey' or 'Roseanne Barr'? We can but hope.

But in part they are right to still tap this seam, because some computer users are, to put it kindly, 'curious'. Though many may say 'stupid' is more fitting. People are still duped by this naïve approach.

However, the returns for the virus writer are diminishing. So much so that MyLife.M has done little damage and has barely registered on the scale determined by the likes of uber-viruses Bugbear, Klez and Melissa.

But computer users are certainly wising up. Emails which offer pornographic attachments or candid pics of celebs are by and large treated with suspicion and often just deleted on arrival.

Which makes it very easy for the user to patrol their own desktop. As long as the virus writers continue to show so little innovation it can only be good news for the rest of us.