Anna Kournikova Revealed

摘要

The Kournikova worm outbreak of 2001 was the most significant Visual Basic Script (VBS) threat seen in the wild since the LoveLetter (LoveBug) outbreak of 2000. It was socially engineered to spread quickly, masquerading as a JPEG image of the famous and sexy Russian tennis player, Anna Kournikova. Within just five hours in the wild, the Kournikova worm was spreading at an alarming rate. One anti-virus vendor claimed that there were over 850,000 instances of the worm in the wild within the first 24 hours. While this figure is debatable, there is no refuting the fact that the Kournikova worm took the world by storm, rising to the top of all malicious code prevalence charts within just a few hours. At least four different Fortune 500 organizations were forced to shut down e-mail servers during the early hours of the outbreak. This article explores the details of this most interesting worm and its source code; its creator OnTheFly, the author of the tool used to make the worm; the infamous [K]alamar; and trends and malicious code that have emerged in the wake of the Kournikova worm outbreak.