A Netherlands-based web user has claimed responsibility for unleashing the Anna Kournikova computer virus.
OnTheFly has posted a message on a Dutch website to say it was intended as security warning to surfers.
The virus, which carried the same signature, has been traced to the Excite At Home network in the Netherlands.
"I never wanted to harm the people (who) opened the attachment," says OnTheFly in a posting on a Dutch website.
"But after all: it's their own fault they got infected."
Excite says it is trying to find out if the writer of the virus is an e-mail account holder or if they used the account to disseminate it.
Experts say that the self-perpetuating virus - the most widely disseminated since last year's Love Bug - had been created using a toolkit.