A computer worm expected to begin corrupting files in infected machines around the world on Friday has so far caused no major damage in the Asian financial centres Hong Kong and Tokyo, officials and experts said.
Experts had warned earlier this week that the worm, known as ”Kama Sutra,” ”CME-24,” ”BlackWorm,” or ”Mywife.E,” could corrupt documents using the most common file types, including ”.doc,” ”.pdf,” and ”.zip.”
”It’s well past the deadline but we haven’t confirmed any cases of the Kama Sutra in Japan, which suggests we’re not looking at a major outbreak,” Itsuro Nishimoto, an executive at Tokyo-based computer security company LAC said on Friday afternoon.
He called the threat of an attack a ”bluff” and said even if it did occur, users can easily protect their files with standard precautions, adding that LAC didn’t even send clients any special warnings on the worm.
A manager at Hong Kong’s official coordination centre for computer emergencies said he has not received any reports or calls for help from those infected by the worm.
”It began spreading late last month but we haven’t received any calls in the past two weeks. We don’t expect to receive any today [Friday] either,” Roy Ko said.
The worm is believed to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers, mostly in India, Peru, Turkey and Italy, Finnish security company F-Secure said earlier this week.
Unlike other worms generally designed to help spammers and hackers carry out attacks, Blackworm could inflict more damage because it sets out to destroy documents using the most common file types. It also tries to disable outdated antivirus software.
But Ko said he was not worried.
”Our assessment of the worm damage is ‘not serious’. Big corporations will surely be able to avoid it if they update their antivirus software frequently enough. We’re more worried about individual users and small businesses,” Ko added.
There was also no sign that government offices have been affected, said Mavis Hui, a spokesperson for the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau. – Sapa-AP