F-Secure Employee Needs a Haircut, Virus Says

Security company F-Secure was recently attacked by a virus, as part of a DDoS attack which attempted to display a message saying that Mikko Hyppönen, an employee of the firm, needs a haircut. The attack was launched on October 28 but due to a mistake in the virus code, it was unable to display the message mentioned above. It's interesting to see a security company affected by a web attack and this is probably the highest satisfaction a hacker can get if his attempts manage to invade the official websites.

"The main virus payload is an attempt to launch Denial of Service attack against F-Secure's website on 28th of the month. However, this payload will not execute due to a mistake in the date comparison code of the virus. If the virus was successful it would display this message box addressed to our F-Secure colleague Mikko," security company Sophos stated in a blog post published today by one of its employees.

"Further mistakes in the code cause the virus to corrupt infected files. Luckily, our disinfection routine is able to restore original host functionality, although it is unlikely we will ever see this curiosity in the wild."

F-Secure is one of the most known security companies in the world, being based in Helsinki, Finland. "The company has large branch offices in the USA and Japan, where some antivirus analysis and software development work is also being undertaken. F-Secure Corp. is publicly traded on the Helsinki Stock Exchange under the symbol FSC," the article published on Wikipedia reads.

Mikko Hyppönen, the F-Secure employee who was targeted by the attack, is a Chief Research Officer at the security company after he joined it in 1991. F-Secure has numerous security solutions available on the web such as F-Secure Antivirus or F-Secure Internet Security.