Sober will return on January 5, 2006

VeriSign iDefense has just released a prediction that the next Sober virus attack will be on January 5, 2006. This is the 87th anniversary of the establishment of the Nazi Party.

Ken Dunham, VeriSign iDefense's senior expert, said January 5, 2006, was the most talked about date of Sober virus variants spread online recently.

' We have implemented a number of measures to reverse engineer code of Sober virus variants recently released and discovered on January 5 , 2006 in it ,' said Dunham.

' This kind of programming warns us that this is a predetermined time and that on this day computers still infected with Sober virus will automatically connect to some servers to download the version. Latest malicious code. '

This is not a new virus programming method. Sobig virus also used this method to create serious effects in 2003 when it was also on a certain day during the five new variants of the virus that spread strongly while the old variant automatically stopped working. and disappeared.

And this is not the first time the Sober virus uses this method to organize attacks. On November 14, Bayerisches Landeskriminalamt - a policeman in Bavaria Germany - warned of the Sober virus attack that will take place the next day. The truth proved that they were right. At that time the police in Bavaria did not tell us how they knew and correctly predicted the attack.

' We then thought that the police might have hacked into a Sober virus programming group and learned about it. But perhaps they have also discovered that certain days are embedded in older variants of the Sober virus . '

Sober virus so far has more than 30 different variants. This is also the first virus to use two different languages ​​- English and German with the ability to send themselves via email addresses on the victim's computer.

The person who created the virus - which the police suspect is a German - does not seem to have financial benefits. There was one of Sober's variants that didn't hurt at all in order to spam support for the rightists in Germany. The virus variant then brought a comprehensive message about the author's political views and brought the author's messages to a website supporting the new Nazi regime in Germany.

The most recent variant of the Sober virus that was released on the day of a German political event, on November 22, was the day when Angela Merkel - Germany's first female prime minister took office.

That's all iDefense has relied on to make a prediction on January 5, 2006, the day when the Sober virus will return with a massive attack.