New Bagle virus eating its way through computers
19 January 2004
Internet security firms are warning computer users against a new virus which has been spreading at an alarmingly fast rate.
The virus or worm is contained in infected mails as an attachment and is able to spoof from fields making it look as if the email is from someone you know. The attachment ends in exe, with a subject line of 'hi' and the word 'test' then symbol =) appearing within the message.
Aiming to spread further, the worm can search for new email addresses in the infected computer, such as in the user's contact list.
However, the email will not infect computers after January 28, as using a cut off date, a typical ploy used by hackers, means that detection is easier to avoid.
Internet security firm MessageLabs has reportedly detected more than 70,000 copies of the virus in the last 24 hours alone.
Experts also believe the virus is programmed to send details about all infected computers to website addresses in Germany, however the sites do not yet appear to be up and running.
A further component of the virus allows an attacker to upload and execute random programs on the infected computer, the worm is thought to send itself to addresses taken from files on the hard disk.
Other security companies, such as Sophos, have warned that the virus has also taken the form of the Windows calculator and may mislead business workers in particular as 'the worm pretends to be a 'techie looking' test email to fool people into running the dangerous attachment - not knowing they are potentially giving hackers the power to run destructive code on their computer'.
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