Clock Ticking for Nyxem Virus

DoddyUK writes "The BBC is reporting that the countdown has begun for the Nyxem virus. On February 3rd, common documents such as MS Word, Excel or Powerpoint will be overwritten on infected machines. Over 300,000 machines have been infected thus far, the main method of infection being the promise of porn in unsolicited emails."

Comments

The motive?

[antifoidulus]

From the article:"It shows a certain intelligence in its design but what's the motive?" he asked, "Pure vandalism does not ring true these days."

Maybe economic chaos? The virus goes after MS Office files and pdfs, the files that are 9/10 the most economically valuable on a PC. I wonder what the impact of getting rid of massive amounts of these files would be?
On the plus side, lazy grad students can now say, "The virus ate my thesis" :P

Re:Who out there stilll doesn't get it?

[sqlrob]

Wow what an optimist.

Melissa didn't do it.
Love didn't do it
MyDoom didn't do it.

Why do you think this will?

Hurry, before it's too late!

[ticklejw]

Now's a great time for porn-enjoying Windows users to switch to Linux! All the fun of free Internet porn with none of the viral infection.