German speaking users (and perhaps English speaking too) should watch out for an e-mail, supposedly sent by the soccer organization Fifa, offering tickets to the 2006 tournament in Germany. Can you guess what I am about to say? Yes, you got it in one: its virus infected. The mail contains a nice version of the "Worms-Sober.S" virus.

Like many such virus spreading mails, this one has some apparently well researched social engineering tactics; the mail contains the correct contact information for a Fifa official, and seems fairly authentic.

Currently, it appears that there is some disagreement as regards the risk of this. US firm McAfee classified the virus as a "medium risk", whereas Trend Micro placed the virus in its "red alert" category, pointing out that the virus could be spread in either English or German. Panda Software had a view similar to that of Trend Micro.

In any case, watch what you open. Keep your virus software up to date with the latest patches, and don’t open any attachments that do not come from a source that you expected to get files from.