The glitter has already been stripped from snazzy Christmas email messages by this week's Zafi worm, warn anti-virus experts at Sophos.
The latest variant in the Zafi family, which seems to originate from Hungary, sends emails with attachments which contain a Christmas surprise of a most unsatisfactory sort.
Other viruses in recent days, such as the Atak-I and Atak-J worms, have also adopted the disguise of seasonal greetings in an attempt to spread.
Paul Ducklin, Head of Technology, Asia Pacific for Sophos said,
"Email offers a range of funky digital ways to pass on your best wishes," said "But you can be as polite, incisive, witty, humble, risque, funky, caring - you name it - in words as you can in any number of HTML, JPG, EXE or SCR files."
Ducklin is challenging computer users to be daring this Christmas and - if they wish to send email greetings - to send them as plain text ASCII. He continued,
"If anyone tells you that you're being an old-timer, just tell them that ASCII is the new binary and raise your eyebrows knowingly. With the right fashion pressure, we can put HTML email out to pasture by early 2005."
Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways with a consolidated solution to thwart the virus and spam threats.
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