[HanoiLUG] Vietnamese Messenger Virus

[Steve]

Hanoi - More than 20,000 computers were infected in one day by a
sophisticated new computer virus unleashed by a Vietnamese programmer,
the first of its kind in the country, an internet security official
said Tuesday.

The 'Gai Xinh' (Pretty Girl) virus uses Yahoo Messenger to infect
computers when users click on a link ostensibly from an
instant-messenger contact. Clicking on the link sends an instant
message with the same link to all Yahoo contacts, but it was limited
to certain Vietnamese-language websites.

The virus first appeared at noon on Monday and infected some 2,400
computers per hour, Nguyen Tu Quang, director of the Bach Khoa
Internetwork Security Centre, a leading Vietnamese anti-virus software
provider.

Quang said the sophistication of the virus was impressive, reflecting
the growing skill of Vietnamese hackers even as the country races to
train information-technology professionals.

'This is the dark side of IT development,' Quang said, adding that his
firm is trying to find out who wrote the Pretty Girl bug. 'He must be
a good programmer to be able to write such an awful virus that spreads
all over so quickly.'

The virus poses little wider threat, however, because its messages
inviting users to view photos of beautiful women are only written in
Vietnamese. By Tuesday, Bach Khoa had developed a cleaning system on
its website for infected computers.

Since 1993, about 30 computer viruses have originated in Vietnam, but
Pretty Girl is the first to use instant messaging, Quang said.

Vietnam's infant information-technology industry is growing at an
estimated 30 per cent each year, exporting 70 million dollars in
software last year, according to government statistics.

Internet use has become more common in Vietnam in the past five years,
with the number of internet users jumping from just 1 million in 2001
to nearly 12 million this year.