Antivirus companies say that a new virus, which disguises itself as a program promising to pair people with their perfect partner, is spreading quickly across Europe.

Vendors say that the virus, known as Matcher.A, is less potent than the Love Bug, which ravaged computer systems in May last year, but could pose a nuisance by overloading mail servers internationally.

"What is interesting about it, is that it has a timer and continues to send out emails to everyone," says Eric Chein, Head of Antivirus research at Symantec. "Mail servers could become overwhelmed."

The virus, which targets only Windows users, comes attached to an email with the subjet "Matcher", disguised as a program that will find someone a romantic match. The email has the message: "Want to find you love mates!!! Try this its cool... Looks and Attitude Matching to opposite sex."

The virus does not damage an infected computer but is designed to spread quickly. Written in Visual Basic and transformed into an executable file, it periodically sends itself to everyone in a victim's address book. During system boot it also displays the message "From: Bugger" in DOS.

Cluley says that with any luck most users will not be fooled by the incoherent email. "We hope that, because it doesn't look like a regular communication, it won't spread that much."

So, all you lonely heart buggers out there have been warned!

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001

Answers

Further info for you sad buggers out there:

Virus Definitions pending W32.Matcher is an executable that arrives via email. When executed, the virus will email itself to everyone in the Microsoft Outlook email address book. The worm will continue to send emails while the process is running in the background. The worm arrives as:

Subject: Matcher Body: Want to find your love mates!!! Try this its cool... Looks and Attitude Maching to opposite sex. Attachment: matcher.exe

The virus will try to modify the following entry in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Run Remove the entry for Matcher.exe The worm also modifies the C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file appending the lines:

@echo off

echo from: Bugger pause You can restore the C:\Autoexec.bat file.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

That nice Billy Gates has a lot to answer for.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001