Girls just wanna write viruses

A 17-year old female hacker has written one of the first ever viruses to attack Microsoft's .Net platform, to prove that women can code too.

The Sharpei mass-mailer worm is rated by Symantec a "low" threat but does represent the first malware to be written in the C# programming language devised by Microsoft for .Net.

However, in an interview with US newswire Computer User the worm's author, calling herself Gigabyte, said she wanted to prove to people "there are girls out there who like computers for more than just games".

The worm only infects computers running the .Net framework, however it does mail itself to addresses in the user's outlook address book, even if the framework is not found. It disguises itself as a Microsoft software update, using the subject line: "Important: Windows update".