Sex and the City as bait

net1

Fans of Sex and the City were today warned to be wary of emails claiming to contain a screensaver showing adult outtakes from the raunchy hit TV show, The Register reports.

Instead of delivering illicit thrills, the emails are more likely to carry one of two variants of a new email worm, called Torvil-A and Torvil-B.

The infectious emails travel with a variety of subject lines and message bodies such as: 'Real outtakes from Sex in the City!! Adult content!!! Use with parental advisory =)'.

If the attached file is launched, the worm will try to secrete copies of itself on public Internet newsgroups. The worm will also forward itself every time an infected computer sends an email.

As usual, these worms are Windows-only menaces - Linux, Mac, OS/2 and Unix users are immune.

The stars of Sex and the City are just the latest in a long line of glamorous celebrities who have been used as bait by virus writers to catch out unwary computer users. Other female stars to have been exploited by virus writers in the past include Britney Spears, Anna Kournikova, Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue, among numerous others.