Worm Alert: this time it's a bogus email from Microsoft

Anti-virus vendors are again going into overdrive, warning users about an email which appears to come from Microsoft's technical support unit - but which in fact is the latest worm to hit the net.

The mail appears to come from "Microsoft Support" support@microsoft.com, and has the subject line Invalid SSL certificate. The body text begins: "Hello, Microsoft Corporation announced that an invalid SSL certificate that web sites use is required to be installed on the user computer to use the https protocol."

The mail carries a highly destructive payload: it can render .exe applications unusable by encrypting them with a random encryption key, according to security specilialist Central Command.

At the time of publication, Central Command had only received one report of the worm in the wild, but is advising users to be vigilant.

For more info, see http://www.centralcommand.com