Hackers Pig Out On Swine Flu Concerns

"Computer scammers are feeding off swine flu fears to entice people to download viruses or purchase bogus products.

"Emails titled `Are you worried about flu outbreak?` and `Global panic as swine flu spreads to Europe` are luring people into clicking on links or opening attachments that could be malicious, computer security company PC Tools said.

"PC Tools spokeswoman Magida Ezzat said cyber criminals were also using the celebrity angle, with email titles such as `Swine flu in Hollywood` and `Madonna caught swine flu`.

"`Hackers will play on any big event or celebrities and we've recently seen a lot of scams around the financial crisis as well as the inauguration of Barack Obama,` she said.

"The spam emails usually contain a link to a malicious website or what appears to be a PDF file, but is in fact a program that tries to steal user names and passwords."

From news.com.au...

Mad Scientists Release H5N1 Bug

"It's emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

"Last December, the Austrian branch of US vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu, altered so it couldn't replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February, a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two seem to have been mixed in error.

"Markus Reinhard of Baxter says no one was infected because the H3N2 was handled at a high level of containment. But Ab Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands says: `We need to go to great lengths to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen.`"

Source: NewScientist