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Spammers' Scavenging E-Mail Virus Surfaces on Net
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LONDON (Reuters) -
A new computer virus capable of
harvesting millions of e-mail addresses from infected PCs was
rapidly spreading across the Internet Monday, security experts
said.
The infection, known as "Bagle" or "Beagle," appears to be
the handiwork of spammers keen to collect a batch of e-mail
addresses they can then re-sell to other spam e-mail marketers
or keep for their own use.
"Bagle" also contains code that could turn an infected
computer into a veritable "spamming" machine.
Security experts said it is patterned after the recent
"Sobig" and "Mimail" outbreaks, which also turned scores of
computers into zombie machines that spammers can control
remotely to send torrents of get-rich-quick and sex aid
messages to other computer users.
"It seems perfectly possible that Bagle is yet another worm
written by spammers. When they have enough infected computers,
they could automatically install invisible e-mail proxy servers
on each machine and start spamming through them," said Mikko
Hypponen, research manager at Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure.
A host of virus-detection firms had placed their most
severe ratings on the e-mail, noting it was spreading quickly
from Asia through Europe and now to the United States.
The e-mail infection, or worm, contains a familiar subject
line of "Hi" and an executable file attachment identified by
".exe." The body of the e-mail contains random characters.
The virus is triggered once a computer user clicks on the
attachment, setting in motion an aggressive e-mail harvesting
program that scans all documents on the infected computer and
throughout the network it is attached to.
Computer analysts said most corporate e-mail filters should
be able to block the infected e-mail, but that home users were
particularly vulnerable.
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