Internet shoppers have been warned about a new virus which tries to trick them into revealing their bank details and other personal information.
The virus takes the form of an email appearing to be from internet payment system PayPal.
It warns consumers their account is about to expire and asks for a series of details, including their credit card number, pin and expiry date, full name, date of birth and social security number.
MessageLabs, which provides email security systems, said it had intercepted more than 26,000 copies of the virus since it first became aware of it on Monday afternoon.
It said the virus, which has been dubbed the Mimail email worm, originated in France but about three-quarters of the emails were sent from the United States.
It is the tenth variation of the virus, all of which have pretended to be from PayPal, a system that enables people to make payments, or receive money, securely over the internet.
The worm arrives as an attachment to an email called either InfoUpdate.exe or www.paypal.com.pif. It spreads by emailing copies of itself to email addresses from the infected computer.
The sender of the email appears as do-notreply@paypal.com.
MessageLabs warned consumers not to open the email if they received it and always to be suspicious of emails asking for personal details.
Thursday November 20, 2003
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