The Storm Worm came to prominence back in 2007 when recipients received a simple email.
The spam email arrived in inboxes with a large variety of subject lines and the infected attachment varied in name too.
The most common variant, however, was the one from which the worm acquired it’s name -
Subject: 230 dead as storm batters Europe
Attachment: video.exe
The Storm worm first surfaced in the middle of January 2007 and typically had one of several different Trojans associated with it.
These Trojans were most often disguised as the following attached files -
- video.exe
- read more.exe
- full_video.exe
- flash_postcard.exe
- full_text.exe
Most Windows operating systems of the time could be infected by one of these Trojans should the emailed attachment be opened.
As the following video from F-Secure demonstrates, the worm spread far and wide in a very short period of time -
Even though the worm was most commonly known as ‘Storm’ there were several alternative subject lines for the infected email, including -
- 230 dead as storm batters Europe
- Russian missile shot down Chinese satellite
- Russian missile shot down USA aircraft
- Russian missile shot down USA satellite
- Chinese missile shot down USA aircraft
- Chinese missile shot down USA satellite
- Strongest earthquake hits Beijing
- Wrapped Up
- Death toll in China exceeds 1000000
- Recent china earthquake kills million
- British Muslims Genocide
- Naked teens attack home director
- Saddam Hussein alive!
- Saddam Hussein safe and sound!
- U.S. Southwest braces for another winter blast. More then 1000 people are dead
- President of Russia Putin dead
- Third World War just have started!
- First Nuclear Act of Terrorism!
- So in Love
- I Believe
- A Romantic Place
- A Little (sex) Card
- The Miracle of Love
- All For You
- Safe and Sound
- A Special Kiss
- Hugging My Pillow
- You’re Soo Kissable
- Want to Meet?
- For You
amongst many, many others.
Were you ever infected with the Storm worm?
Can you remember any of the other subject titles the email arrived with?
Read more : Malware That Changed The World
Article by Lee Munson
Lee's non-technical background allows him to write about internet security in a clear way that is understandable to both IT professionals and people just like you who need simple answers to your security questions.
Lee has written 2278 awesome articles for us at Security FAQs
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