"Panda burning joss stick" virus writer Li Jun tests his program to kill the virus under the watch of a police officer at a detention center in Xiantao, central China's Hubei Province on Feb. 14, 2007. [Photo: Xinhua]   Feb.15 - Li Jun, the creator of the widespread computer virus "joss-stick burning panda," has written a program to deal with the virus while in custody.

 

Ye Tieguan, deputy director of the police bureau in Xiantao in central China's Hubei province, says that the anti-virus program is under testing by experts in the police department. If it works, the program will be released on the Internet in a week for free downloading.

 

The worm has infected over a million PCs in the country since it first hit the Internet in December.

 

It wreaks havoc among individual and corporate users, deleting files, damaging programs and attacking web portals.

 

The worm is dubbed as the "joss-stick burning panda" because it changes desktop icons into cute cartoon pandas, the most famous of which holds three burning joss-sticks, or Chinese incense, in his paws.

 

It reportedly steals account names of online gamers and instant messengers, which are hotly traded with real money online in China.

 

Police in Hubei province detained eight men involved in the case on Monday. Li Jun admitted he wrote the virus last October and earned more than 100,000 yuan (US$12,890) by selling it to about 120 people.