Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Britney Spears are the name of a virus scam that is trying to take on PCs for a denial-of-service attack on Microsoft. Hackers have launched a self-spreading worm, called Ahker-F that promises spicy movie clips of the celebrities. The e-mails contain text such as: "Watch Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt caught (sic) on TAPE! SEXY CLIP! WATCH IT!"

Connected to the email is a .Zip file that contains the worm. If opened, the worm spreads to the user's e-mail contacts, stops security settings on the computer, and launches a denial-of-service attack against Microsoft's security update Web site.

"People's hunger for spicy gossip is unquenchable, and some may be tempted to run what come out to be pornographic movie files spread across the Internet," Sophos, a security software company, said in a report. "Though, virus writers have a long history of mask their malicious code as this type of content. Everybody should be very careful about what they select to run on their computer."

The virus also spreads through file-sharing networks, using file names like PORNO.exe, XXX.exe and Naked Britney.exe. Sophos said Thursday that only a small number of reports of the worm had been obtained.