WASHINGTON, Jan 4: The Pakistan-India conflict has entered the cyber realm as hackers across the subcontinent have infected hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 100 countries on the new year’s day and the virus is spreading.

Last summer, when a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament brought more than a million troops to the border, Pakistani hackers attacked the official site of the Indian defence ministry. They inserted messages proclaiming independence for the held Kashmir. It was not the first hacking bout between the two rivals, however, both the sides had engaged in such behaviour previously.

The latest virus attack had arrived with a warning for the Pakistani hackers: “Your days are over, now it is our turn to show that ‘My India is great’ (‘Bharat Mahan Hai,’ in Hindi).”

The message continues: “Want peace and prosperity in India? Then (trash) corrupted politicians.” It also warns politicians: “Talent and hard work should be respected. Self-styled (expletive) must be eliminated. No more (expletive) monopoly.”

The message included an e-mail address — qph@hackmail.com — and a mailing address in New Delhi.

Infected computers were automatically directed to an official website of the Pakistan government. Its virulent spread had enabled thousands of machines with the code to conduct a distributed denial-of-service attack aimed at the homepage of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan at pak.gov.pk. On Tuesday, the virus forced one Pakistani official site, infopak.gov.pk, to suspend service.

An earlier message also challenged G-Force, a group of Pakistani hackers, to match the “intelligence and expertise” of the Indian hackers.

The G-Force hackers, who reportedly operate from Lahore, Pakistan, had claimed responsibility for attacking the official site of the Indian defence ministry in the summer.

“Come & work with us” against “the G-Force-Pak shiites”, the message urged Indian hackers.

Also earlier this week, e-mail management firm MessageLabs gave the new virus, dubbed W32/Yaha.M, the No. 2 spot on the list of the most virulent computer viruses.

The first copy of the virus was detected June 15 in an e-mail from Kuwait. Most copies were coming from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.