E-mail virus or Harry Potter book

Dubai: Computer users in the UAE have been warned to beware of an e-mail that pretends to contain a copy of the forthcoming Harry Potter book but which will infect recipient computers.

The e-mail is circulating just as interest in the seventh and final installment of the last Harry Potter series - titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - builds to fever pitch ahead of its July 21 publication.

The e-mail, and a similar computer pop up, spreads what is known as a malware - a malicious piece of software that can infect the user's computer.

When people try to open the document, they find that it contains just the phrase "Harry Potter is dead" and meanwhile the malware infects their computer, changing its homepage and causing a special message to appear when they log in.