Spread the virus to print a picture ... the owl

British security firm Sophos has discovered a virus that works quite oddly. After infiltrating the computer, it sends a series of print jobs to an owl with the words 'O RLY?' (Oh, really? - Oh really?) To the printer system.

Spread the virus to print a picture ... the owl Picture 1
Hoots.A's photo spread. ( Photo: Sophos )

Hoots.A virus is a typical type of dangerous program in the late 1980s, when authors created viruses to entertain, not for any benefit. According to Sophos, the worm seems to be the product of a disgruntled employee and wants to make the computer system in a certain company clogged, but he is not aware that Hoots.A is spreading so quickly.

" It is incomprehensible why this author wanted to print an owl, " said Graham Cluley, Sophos's advisor. " Hoots.A is not a 'professional' virus. Most hackers will encrypt their programs to avoid detection, but Hoots.A is not. It is also written in Visual Basic language - very little. used for writing viruses today ".

Anyway, Hoots.A has shown that printers can also become the target of Trojans and Sophos reminds companies that need to manage more stringent machines.

TN