A new Internet worm named "Bin Laden" has begun spreading across China, but has not caused serious damage so far, according to today's China Daily.

The new worm appears in the attachment of the e-mail as "BINLADEN-BRAZIL.EXE," explained Xia Ji, a senior engineer with Beijing-based Kingsoft CO. Ltd.

Such an .exe file will generate a great variety of other files, which will be very difficult to totally delete once opened, Xia said, quoted by Wednesday's China Daily.

However, the "Bin Laden" worm will not cause a fatal crash. But it may occupy part of system resources and therefore slow down a computers' running speed.

The "Bin Laden" virus spreads mainly through the popular on-line chatting software "ICQ," said Ma Jie, a technician with Beijing Rising Technology, one of the country's leading anti-virus software developers. The virus can automatically search ICQ's e-mail addresses and send infected mail.

According to the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center in Tianjin, the new viruses named after Bin Laden, the prime suspect of the September 11 tragedy, have emerged since the US-led forces launched raids against the Taliban regime last month. When computers are infected, chatting boxes with jeering words against the US president George W. Bush will appear on the screens when they are started.

(China Daily November 21, 2001)