Two new World Cup worms appear

Two new email worms are exploiting interest in the World Cup to attack computers and turn them into part of a botnet, SC Magazine UK reports.

The Sixem.A worm spreads using a variety of disguises, including subject lines such as "Naked World Cup game set," "Soccer fans killed five teens" and "Crazy soccer fans," to try and dupe unsuspecting users into clicking on a malicious attachment.

If the attached file is run, it attempts to disable security software on the infected computer and then spread itself to other email addresses.

Another worm, W32.Worm.Zade.A, is a new mass emailing worm that sends itself out as a World Cup themed message. Once a machine is infected with it, it attempts to download and execute a file from a remote server and terminate anti-virus and personal firewall software.

"In this time of football frenzy, we urge all computer users not to open any suspect emails and attachments and get caught off side," said one security expert.