Security experts have warned of an image-eating worm in circulation.
A rogue program that allows cybercriminals to create a worm disguised as an image file that actually destroys pictures on your hard disk has been spotted on the web.
Images are replaced by a black background on which the word 'Hacked' appears.
Researchers said that the worm demonstrated why it is important to back up all your files.
"Many people upload images to sites such as Flickr, but think their data is safe purely because they also keep copies of their images on their PC," said Christopher Boyd of Facetime Security on the SpywareGuide Greynets blog.
"Unless you have some form of dedicated back-up system in place or an external hard disk, it can go horribly wrong very quickly," he continued.
However, according to Boyd, the 'worm' created by the rogue program doesn't actually have many worm-like qualities.
"In testing, we simply could not get the file to do any spreading of its own accord. If there is supposed to be a worm element to this, something has gone horribly wrong with the coding," he said.
Topic: Image-eating worm warning (Read 507 times)