We’ve just heard that a new malware (software designed to infiltrate and/or damage a computer) is spreading like wildfire through MSN Messenger.

The Trojan is an IRC bot which sends itself in a .zip file, either as a file including the word ‘pics’ with a double extension executable (DSC00432.jpg.exe) or with the name ‘images’ as a .pif executable (IMG34814.pif).

It was first detected on Sunday 18th November – and was found to be spreading at the rate of several hundred machines per hour. As well as being spread by unknown users, the Trojan is also able to pass itself on as if being sent by known contacts.

You can read more about it here.