Sober awakening on Monday?

PCs infected with a recent variant of the Sober worm are set to reactivate on Monday, according to Germany's Federal Office for Information Security.

However, it is unclear what payload the reactivation will have, according to a statement (in German) from the organization in Bonn published Friday.

U.S. antivirus vendors McAfee and Symantec were not able to confirm the report from the German organization later on Friday, although a Symantec spokesman said if there is any impact, it would likely be limited.

There have been several variants of the Sober virus since the original appeared in 2003. This variant that is supposedly going to reactivate posed as offers of a free ticket for next year's soccer World Cup in Germany and set up backdoor access on compromised PCs.