When the MiMail.l e-mail virus appeared last month, it got little attention from the media. After all, it was only a minor variant of the MiMail family, and spread slowly across the Internet, right?

Well, it may not have been the most destructive worm ever, but it turns out that MiMail virtually shut down The Spamhaus Project and SpamCop, two sites where you can report spam abuses.

2003 was supposed to be the year to end e-mail-borne viruses, given that both MS Outlook and antivirus apps have become much better at stopping them. But in 2004, I expect to see more of these pests, especially more spam-related ones like MiMail.l, as professional spammers continue using them both to collect e-mail addresses and to distribute their messages anonymously.

By Robert Vamosi at ZDNet.

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