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Users around the globe are being swarmed with fake emails again as a new variant of the Sober worm is beginning to make its rounds.

Using enticing subject and body content by making references to the 2006 World Cup, the worm includes an infected attachment, hoping the user will open it thinking it is a legitimate email.

“Many people will be eager to attend one of the biggest sporting events in the world next year, and may think its worth the risk of opening the email attachment just in case the prize is for real. Computer users who don’t practise safe computing will feel as sick as a parrot, and will only be passing this worm onto other unsuspecting victims,” says Graham Cluely, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

As always, we recommend ONLY opening attachments from trusted individuals or using a webmail client to scan email before downloading it to your computer.

As a friendly service reminder to our readers, we’d like to make you all aware of a great program called Ad-Aware.

This program, which runs only on Windows, will scan your computer for trojans, spyware and other programs that just shouldn’t be on your machine (including the recent MS Blaster worm).

We strongly recommend that EVERY user download this program, update its virus definitions (so it can catch the most recent viruses) and then run the program at least once a week.

You’ll be VERY surprised to see just who is watching you. Just think of this as your way of making the Internet a faster and safer place.