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Just posted on CNN homepage....
Netsky spread quickly on Wednesday morning, with most antivirus firms assigning it a medium risk rating. It's a tricky bug for consumers to spot, as its subject lines and included message are almost completely random. Among the subject lines spotted so far by researchers: "I found this document about you," "Is that true," "my hero," and "You are a bad writer." Users must click on the attached message — which also has a random name — to become infected.
And:
New Bagel has backdoor
The only good news about Netsky: It doesn't appear to do anything malicious to infected machines, Huger said. "It's only goal is to spread."
That's not true of another upgraded worm, Bagel.B, which began infecting computers on Tuesday morning. Bagel.B, which is also rated a medium threat by most antivirus companies, leaves a backdoor on infected machines. It sends an electronic notification to Internet addresses in Germany whenever a machine is infected.
Even though the spread of Bagel.B has leveled off considerably, Huger said the backdoor component means it's a bigger threat than Netsky.
"The threat from the backdoor is significant," he said. Like many worms of late, researchers speculate the virus writer intends to use compromised machines to launch spam campaigns.
The initial Bagel worm, discovered in mid-January, didn't spread quickly, but Tuesday's version made its mark. Antivirus firm MessageLabs said it had trapped 95,000 copies of the worm by lunchtime Tuesday.
"We were getting 10,000 an hour at one point," said MessageLabs CTO Mark Sumner. "Then it started to level off. It peaked yesterday."
And like Netsky, it is hard for consumers to spot because its subject lines and message body are randomly generated.
Make sure that good ol firewall and AV system is up to date!!
Netsky spread quickly on Wednesday morning, with most antivirus firms assigning it a medium risk rating. It's a tricky bug for consumers to spot, as its subject lines and included message are almost completely random. Among the subject lines spotted so far by researchers: "I found this document about you," "Is that true," "my hero," and "You are a bad writer." Users must click on the attached message — which also has a random name — to become infected.
And:
New Bagel has backdoor
The only good news about Netsky: It doesn't appear to do anything malicious to infected machines, Huger said. "It's only goal is to spread."
That's not true of another upgraded worm, Bagel.B, which began infecting computers on Tuesday morning. Bagel.B, which is also rated a medium threat by most antivirus companies, leaves a backdoor on infected machines. It sends an electronic notification to Internet addresses in Germany whenever a machine is infected.
Even though the spread of Bagel.B has leveled off considerably, Huger said the backdoor component means it's a bigger threat than Netsky.
"The threat from the backdoor is significant," he said. Like many worms of late, researchers speculate the virus writer intends to use compromised machines to launch spam campaigns.
The initial Bagel worm, discovered in mid-January, didn't spread quickly, but Tuesday's version made its mark. Antivirus firm MessageLabs said it had trapped 95,000 copies of the worm by lunchtime Tuesday.
"We were getting 10,000 an hour at one point," said MessageLabs CTO Mark Sumner. "Then it started to level off. It peaked yesterday."
And like Netsky, it is hard for consumers to spot because its subject lines and message body are randomly generated.
Make sure that good ol firewall and AV system is up to date!!
