Virus writers obviously try to use the reputation of the free on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia of malware for the infection of PCs with harming software. In one on Tuesday of yesterday Mass mail spread the receivers requested, an alleged safety update for Windows of a Wikipedia web page to download.

The attack made itself Wikipedia equivalent several times too uses. Thus at least a part of the Mails came from official Wikipedia email address. In the Mail the official Wikipedia Logo and with the heading was used “Wikipedia warns” of a new variant of the virus Lovesan/W32.Blaster warned. The text referred thereby to a Wikipedia article in which on the left of were contained on the Domain wikipedia-download.org. Of this web page the allegedly new Patches should download itself. Completely impudently the article stated even, due to the new blowing he attack of Microsoft were overloaded servers, why Microsoft Wikipedia asked to help with the distribution of the updates.

The mail sender made itself thereby a characteristic of the Wikipedia software Mediawiki too uses. The software stores for documentation reasons all individual versions of an article. Attentive Wikipedia authors had noticed the wrong warning text and on the left of in the Wikipedia article over W32.Blaster immediately and had cancelled in few minutes. The old versions were however further callable, so that the mail sender could do on it left. Only after the Wikipedia administrators became attentive to the mass email, the article versions concerned were removed from version history. The left from the Mails leads now only to an error message.

Also the alleged Wikipedia Download site was later no longer attainable short time. To a first test of the updates with more than 20 virus scanners none announced the scanner a virus, an analysis in a sand box supplied however references that it must concern a parasite. Which however exact it makes, is the subject of further investigations.

A speaker of the German Wikipedia confirms the incident opposite on-line. In the future the administrators intensified on such manipulations respected and appropriate article versions faster from version history to delete. Whether the Wikimedia Foundation or the association Wikimedia Germany will seize legal steps because of abuse of its mark and domain name is still unclear.