Spread of new e-mail virus is the fastest ever

A virus that debuted this week has been declared the fastest spreading e-mail plague of all time, while another malicious programme that hit last week continued to disrupt computers worldwide.

MessageLabs, a company that filters e-mail for corporate clients around the world, today said it had intercepted more than a million copies of the “Sobig.F” virus the previous day, the most it has ever intercepted in a single day. That was one in every 17 e-mail messages the firm scanned.