Google apologized to users of its video group this week for unintentionally hosting a version of the infamous Kama Sutra Worm.
Three posts to the Google Video Blog group contained a the w32/Kasper.A@mm worm, also known as the Kama Sutra Worm, according to a post from the Google Video Team.
Google offered a free download of Symantec's Norton AntiVirus software from the Google pack to users who thought their PCs could be infected.
Mark Sunner, MessageLabs CTO, told SCMagazine.com today that in-stream malware scanning would help to prevent viruses from spreading in this manner.
"As an event, this really isn't unique to Google, this certainly has happened in the past where mailing lists get used to propagate viruses. As time goes on, it's become something that really shouldn't be allowed to happen. People are moving away from desktop protection to scanning in stream, and had this been in place here, this just wouldn't have happened," he said. "Certainly, going forward, this will be a much more logical approach rather than just having to deal with it at the desktop level."
The worm, also known as the Blackworm virus, CME-24, Nyxem.E and MyWife, is generally transmitted by email and, once activated, will overwrite files on the third day of each month. At that time, about 30 minutes after an infected system is started, the worm overwrites files on local drives.
In February, researchers from CipherTrust estimated that, despite a "relatively fast moving" disinfection of PCs, five percent of infected machines were still hosting the malware.
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