"Here You Have" Email Virus Attacks Government Agencies and Corporations

You would think that after years of being assaulted by email trojans and viruses, and being warned about the dangers of opening emails with attachments, people would be more cautious about what they read in their inboxes, but apparently not. I always make it a point to contact the sender confirming that the email indeed did originate from them. But there were enough fools who opened an email with the subject "Here You Have" and a .pdf attachment with a virus that sent the business world into a tizzy with spam that in some cases clogged the system so much so that workers were unable to use their email.

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A global e-mail virus spammed inboxes this afternoon, slowing -- and in some cases halting -- work at offices around the world as employees watched their inboxes inexplicably fill with e-mails under the subject line "Here you have." Some workers were forced to go without e-mail altogether, as the flood of spam put their services out of commission.

Organizations including NASA, Comcast, AIG, Disney, Proctor & Gamble, Florida Department of Transportation and Wells Fargo are just a few of the organizations apparently affected by the worm, which appears to have sent out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of e-mails.

When contacted by ABCNews.com, security firm McAfee said it was investigating the attack but confirmed that it had affected corporations around the world. Although McAfee did not disclose how widespread the attack was, around 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon, the subject of the spam e-mail, "Here you have," was the second hottest search on Google trends.

McAfee is apparently is investigating the origins, although hasn't come up with any definitive answers.

"We do know that it's essentially an e-mail based worm that's propagating that has a link that alleges to be a pdf document that it wants the user to click on. [snip] In reality, it's a piece of malware that's obfuscating as a pdf and it has the capabilities to spread virally once it's installed on your machine."

Although the risk is considered "low" there are several versions of the email, including one that says "Hello: This is The Document I told you about, and you can find it here". with a link that downloads what is considered a trojan. Another one, says "Just For You" and contains a link with "This is The Free Dowload Sex Movies,you can find it Here." If anyone is stupid enough to click on that one, then they deserve what they get.

What happens when a user clicks on an infected link, the virus is downloaded onto their computer and like a cancer spreads to the user's email contacts.

Another antivirus firm, Symantec says

Symantec speculates that the threat -- initially named Trojan.Horse but renamed to W32.Imsolk.A@mm -- originated from a botnet and appears to be hitting "many, many companies indiscriminately."

"Once the threat copies itself to another machine, if a user even opens the folder that contains the threat on this new machine, this will launch the threat and cause it to spread further through both email and over shared drives," the company wrote in a bulletin.

Since NASA was affected, the Department of Homeland Security officials has stepped into the picture and is also investigating.

.. the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team and DHS National Cyber Security Division are expected to issue a bulletin later today. They will also conduct forensic analysis to try and determine where the worm originated. A DHS official said that several federal departments and agencies are experiencing the virus, although the official would only confirm NASA.

"US-CERT has received multiple reports from a number of federal agencies and private sector entities experiencing an email worm...US-CERT is in the process of collecting and analyzing samples of the malware and has developed and disseminated mitigation strategies," said DHS press secretary Amy Kudwa in a statement.

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation e-mail has been taken down at the agency because of the spam attack. He said six other agencies in Florida have also been hit by the virus.

Who knows if this is a prelude to what some have considered the potential for major cyber attacks, but corporations are going to have to beef up security and users are going to have to practice safer computing.