New Virus Alert ~

[Guest guest]

NEW YORK (June 5) - A new computer virus that offers hackers full control of

infected PCs, giving them access to critical information such as passwords

and credit-card numbers, was spreading on the Internet Thursday.

 

The virus, dubbed ``BugBear.B'' by virus experts, follows two other quickly

spreading E-mail viruses seen in recent weeks - ``Sobig.B'' and

``Sobig.C'' - but far exceeds them in its ability to do harm and in the

aggressiveness of its spread.

 

E-mail filtering services company MessageLabs Inc. had blocked 37,400 copies

of BugBear.B from 125 countries by midday Thursday, after barely registering

a blip on Wednesday, when the first copies were seen.

 

Network Associates Inc. said it had received 100 infection reports from

corporate and consumer customers as of Thursday morning. Its rival, Symantec

Corp., said it received 180 infection reports from consumers and 51 from

corporate customers.

 

All it takes is one E-mailed copy of the virus entering a corporate network

for havoc to ensue. Once inside, BugBear.B will spread throughout a network.

 

Infected E-mails can carry various ``from'' addresses, which don't

necessarily belong to the real sender. The subject lines and message texts

also vary widely and in some cases are stolen from documents and files found

on the victim's PC. The virus-laden attachment is compressed with a modified

UPX format and shows up with multiple names.

 

BugBear.B, which is a variant of the ``BugBear'' virus that struck in late

September 2002, installs a hidden file that can allow hackers to access

infected machines, where they could delete files or run programs of their

choosing.

 

Because the virus installs a Keylogger program that collects a user's

keystrokes, including passwords and credit-card numbers entered into Web

sites, hackers could use their access to the PC to acquire such sensitive

personal information.

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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.487 / Virus Database: 286 - Release 6/1/03