The Anna Kournikova worm was released back in 2001 and, whilst it was not aimed at causing data loss, it did cause embarrassment and disruption for many personal and business users.
The worm was spread via email with an attachment that claimed to be a picture of Anna Kournikova, who many a hot-blooded young male found incredibly hard to resist.
Opening the bogus attachment simply sent copies of the worm by email to all addresses found in the recipient’s address book in Microsoft Outlook.
The virus inevitably resulted in a number of copycat variants.
Whilst most worm creators have never been identified, a 21-year-old Dutchman, Jan de Wit, admitted to unleashing the Anna Kournikova worm.
De Wit, an obsessed admirer of Kournikova, ended up receiving a community service sentence.
Heres more in my short series on malware that changed the world -
- The OSX/RSPlug Trojan
- The I Love You Virus
- The Blaster Worm
- Anna Kournikova
- The Melissa Virus
- The Storm Worm
- The Morris Worm
- The Conficker Virus
- The Chernobyl Virus
- SQL Slammer
- Sasser
- MyDoom
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