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<font size="2">Computer users are being urged to be on guard for a bogus
e-mail that pretends to offer news updates about Hurricane Katrina as a means to
infect their PCs. </font>
<font size="2">The malicious e-mail gives a brief news bulletin on the
disaster before urging people to click "read more" and be taken to the full
story on a website. </font>
<font size="2">Yet once on the website, a reader's computer will receive a
virus. </font>
<font size="2">People are also being told to watch out for fraudulent e-mail
scams pretending to raise cash for Katrina victims.
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<font size="2">The separate virus and fake donations bogus e-mails have been
discovered by computer security firms SophosLabs and Websense Security Labs.
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<font size="2">They are similar to previous fraudulent e-mails connected to
last year's Indian Ocean Tsunami. </font>
<font size="2">Delete e-mail </font>
<font size="2">Under the virus scam, the hackers send a "Trojan" virus to the
victim's computer, which can give them complete access to, and control of, its
files. </font>
<font size="2">While the user's computer is not infected if he or she simply
reads the e-mail without opening the attachment, people are urged to delete such
e-mails immediately. </font>
<font size="2">It is also recommended that people check that their
virus-protection is up to date. </font>
<font size="2">To avoid being conned out of money, people are being urged to
double-check the validity of any charity which asks via e-mail for a Katrina
donation. </font>
<font size="2">"The hurricane is a dreadful natural disaster, and it's
sickening to think that hackers are prepared to exploit the horrendous situation
in an attempt to break into computers for the purposes of spamming, extortion
and theft," said SophosLabs senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.<!-- E BO -->
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