Sex sites infected by a demon virus

This week should be good for antivirus software sales: the Hare virus will deliver its payload on Thursday 22 August, wiping out the hard disk of infected PCs.

"It's a nasty piece of work," said Rob Eatwell, channel sales manager at McAfee. "People will switch on their computers on Thursday and they won't have a hard disk."

The virus displays the message "HDEuthenasia by Demon Emperor: Hare Krsna, hare, hare" and wipes the hard disk.

It has a second trigger date of 22 September.

Virus experts say only the latest versions of antivirus utilities will detect and remove Hare. Antivirus firms are distributing new code on disk and from their web sites.

"This one is dangerous because it's in the wild, new and actively distributed by the author," said Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant at Dr Solomon's.

The virus has been deposited on various sex sites on the internet, guaranteeing widespread random infection. There are no symptoms to indicate that infection has occurred.