In China a virus called ‘Xiongmao Shaoxiang’ or ‘panda burning joss stick’. The author, Li Jun, was arrested. He has written a program to remove the virus which will be released with a week by the police after testing.

Ye Tieguan, vice director of the police bureau in Xiantao, central China’s Hubei Province, said computer users can download the program from the Internet for free after further tests by the police. Primary tests show the program written by the virus author Li Jun is effective.

Li Jun is in all sorts of strife and writing a program to remove his Panda virus may help him somewhat. He told the police that he wrote the program to kill ‘panda burning joss stick’ virus after knowing millions of computers were infected, but he did not release it for fear of providing clues of his whereabouts.

Li Jun, as do all virus writers, claim he wrote the ‘panda’ virus just for fun. However, he has to explain the fun part now that he has confessed to selling the virus to 12 people for $US12,887.

The virus, which infects program files and flashes a picture of a panda holding three joss sticks, has been spreading through the Internet and infected millions of computers in China.

The virus can also steal the account names and passwords of on-line game players and popular chat sites. Which is possibly Li Jun’s idea of fun.

The police in Hubei said they have arrested six people including Li Jun in connection with the spread of the virus, which is the first time they have made arrests involving a major Internet virus that originated in China.

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Entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 12:01 am under Internet, Security.

Read more entries by Gareth Powell.
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