Romeo&Juliet: Brand New Dangerous Virus or Marketing Ploy?

At the beginning of this week, several information agencies published a press release issued by GFI, a Malta-based Internet software vendor, claiming that the company has discovered a hazardous new virus called Romeo&Juliet, which is being spread via e-mail at a reckless speed. The press release also contains information that the virus is particularly dangerous, because current virus scanners cannot detect it. Because of the numerous requests received during the past few hours from disoriented users, Kaspersky Lab Int. considers it necessary to clarify the information provided by GFI.

Originally, Kaspersky Lab discovered the virus known as I-Worm.BleBla (Verona) on November 16 in Poland. Later on that same day, after a comprehensive analysis had been conducted, an emergency update for the Kaspersky^TM Anti-Virus (AVP) database was released and immediately placed on the Kaspersky Lab Web site for the general user public to download.

"Obviously the name -Romeo&Juliet' sounds much more enchantingly literary, however, it doesn't change the virus' essence and doesn't make it more or less dangerous. It also doesn't change the fact that Kaspersky Anti-Virus has been able to effectively neutralise the virus for nearly a week since it was originally discovered," said Denis Zenkin, Head of Corporate Communications for Kaspersky Lab.

Technical details about the I-Worm.BleBla are available on Kaspersky Virus Encyclopedia.