Experts warn of cunning email virus

Anti-virus experts are warning web users to be on the lookout for a destructive and cunning new e-mail virus.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs say the latest virus is far more complex than the recent Kournikova and Naked Wife outbreaks.

'Magistr' uses a number of tricks to dupe recipients, including a facility to reproduce itself as randomly worded e-mails.

Kaspersky add that once opened it can overwrite essential system data and display an insulting message.

Hard drive files are replaced with a text file reading: "You think you are God, but you are only a piece of s**t."

The virus - which is dubbed a 'worm' because of its ability to replicate itself - is signed by a virus writer from Malmo, Sweden.