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The virus, which the company named 'Storm Worm' has been sent to hundreds of thousands of email addresses globally, with the e-mail's subject line saying '230 dead as storm batters Europe.'

The attached file contains the malware that can infiltrate computer systems.

'What makes this exceptional is the timely nature of the attack,' Mikko Hypponen, head of research at F-Secure said.

Hypponen said thousands of computers around the world, most in private use, had been affected.

He said most users would not notice the malware, or trojan, which creates a back door to the computer that can be exploited later to steal data or to use the computer to post spam.