Microsoft bulletin board hides destructive worm

Anti-virus experts today warned of a worm lurking in a fake Microsoft bulletin board.

The bulletin board, masquerading as an advisory forum, warns recipients of an unnamed virus that can obliterate documents and destroy PCs' Basic Input Output System (BIOS).

A hyperlink within the bogus document advises recipients to download and install a patch from a web site.

Once the user has downloaded the fake patch, the hacker then proceeds to install a trojan into the user's PC which could potentially launch a series of denial of service attacks (DoS).

Eric Chien, research director at Symantec said the worm is a variant of an original leave.B worm but does not pose a serious threat to companies who have all the precautionary measures in place:

"Most vulnerable are the users who have not installed a firewall, which is often the case with home or SOHO users," he said.