Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

AP via The Times of India - Dec 8, 2001

Israeli youths confess to designing Goner virus

JERUSALEM, Dec 9 (AP)--Four Israeli youths in police custody have
admitted to creating and spreading the computer worm "Goner" by
e-mail to attack hundreds of users around the world, police said on
Saturday.

Police arrested the high school students, ages 15 and 16, from the
northern city of Nahariya on Friday in connection with the crime and
they later admitted to concocting and spreading the worm, said Meir
Zohar, the head of the police computer crime squad. The Internet worm
first spread early this month to computers in Europe, especially in
France and Germany. American anti-virus companies have reported more
than 400 cases of Goner attacks worldwide.

The Goner worm appears as an apparently harmless e-mail, with a
subject line of "Hi" and a note asking the recipient to open an
attached screen saver, which affects the computer if downloaded. The
worm then spreads to all addresses in the computer's e-mail system
and through the instant messaging program ICQ and Internet chat
tools.

Israeli police had been investigating the case for about a week,
Zohar said. One of the youths had admitted creating the worm and the
other three confessed to spreading it, he said. Under Israeli law,
the suspects could face between three and five years in jail if
convicted, Zohar said. The worm was designed after the virus Melissa,
which caused millions of dollars of damage worldwide in 1999, but was
able to prevent detection by antivirus and firewall programs, Zohar
said.

Goner quickly became known worldwide for its ability to spread
through Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs on
computers running Windows. The worm destroyed antivirus and firewall
applications as well, exposing recipients to further attacks.
Antivirus company McAfee had labeled the worm "high risk virus
outbreak." Many Israeli computer users had been affected by the worm
since it spread to them from the e-mail address lists of their
acquaintances abroad, Zohar said. ( AP )

Maybe the sheeple will finally realize how crappy Outlook is and switch to something that does not support unsecure scripting. Hell, Bill Gates should be drawn and quartered for letting that product out the door with all the security holes it has.

Last i heard, countries don't write worms.  Obnoxious punks write worms.  Your title should be more like "obnoxious Israeli Punks were the source of GONER worm".

[:D]

Why are you giving Israel the brunt of the blame?  An American company was the one that wrote the toolkit they used to distribute and damage computers.  The kids wrote the virus to cause mayhem.  The American company made money off of the kit.z

Hey he was just posting the article which was clearly written by anti-semitic isolationist Indians whose intent in lying about the originating nation was only to tarnish and bring into question the intentions of the peace-loving Isreali people.

It's a stupid virus asking people to run the program.  
"Stupid is as stupid does" - FG

Someone should start an email that says "virus"

"Don't run the attached program, you will get a virus"

More than a few would run it.

The "PUNKS" from Israel are under house arrest.  (Probably with their computers.)
Regarding Bill Gates and his company's .....code.  His attitude is and has been "I'm Bill Gates and you're not and I don't care whether you like the code or not just so you buy it."