Cute PC Virus Turns Kids Into Net Victims

L O N D O N, Aug. 25 -- Children everywhere beware — Pikachu is not as cuddly as he seems.

The Japanese Pokémon cartoon character has mutated on theWeb into a nasty little computer-bug, spreading himself viae-mails like the devastating “Love Bug” did.

Virus experts said Thursday the cute yellow rabbit-likecreature, a darling of the Pokémon video-game family, haspopped up in the United States, wrecking PCs that it gets intoby wiping out their system files.

Targeting Kids

“Pokey” has so far sown only a fraction of the havoc itsfamous predecessor did, but for a worrying reason. Kids, notcorporations, are this time the target of the cyber-vandals.

“We haven’t seen viruses or worms targeted at childrenbefore,” said Eric Chien, chief researcher at anti-viruscompany Symantec’s European laboratory in the Netherlands.

“This is the first one.”

“Since it comes as a little Pokémon animation, 10-year-oldsare likely to be more interested in double-clicking on it.”

Viruses infect a computer and cause damage, but rely onusers unwittingly spreading them from one PC to another. Worms,usually using the Internet, find their own way to spread.

This worm appears as an e-mail with the title “PikachuPokémon” and the English message “Pikachu is your friend.”

Japanese anti-virus firm Trend Micro advises anyonereceiving the mail to delete the file without opening it.

Pokey Bites Less, But Bites Harder

Earlier this year, the Love Bug raced around the world andcaused damage estimated from hundreds of millions of dollars tobillions — mostly in big corporations forced to shut downtheir internal communications to stamp it out.

It came as an e-mail entitled “ILOVEYOU” with an attachmentthat, if opened, infected the computer and e-mailed itself toeveryone in the user’s Microsoft Outlook address book.

Pokey, aimed at children hooked on the worldwide craze, hasspread far less rapidly and less far, giving anti-virussoftware companies like Symantec, Britain’s Sophos and TrendMicro time to mount a defense that is now in all theirproducts.