Mytob e-mail worm proliferating quickly

[DevilDog#1]

By Matt Hines, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: March 29, 2005, 7:32 AM PT

With eight new variants surfacing in the last week alone, and over a dozen reported since the beginning of March, the Mytob mass-mailing worm appears to be evolving rapidly.

On Monday, security software maker Symantec reported two new versions of the virus, labeled as W32.Mytob.R and W32.Mytob.S. Both worms achieved a low or moderate threat rating from Symantec, as have earlier variants of Mytob, but the company is still recommending that people update their security software immediately to protect against the emerging threat.

Like other iterations of Mytob, the two latest versions are distributed via mass e-mail campaigns, feature so-called backdoor capabilities, and attack computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. The worm uses its own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) engine to forward itself to e-mail addresses that it gathers from infected computers. The threat also spreads by exploiting the Local Security Authority Service Remote Buffer Overflow in Windows, an opening that Microsoft has already addressed in its periodic security updates.

The latest versions of Mytob also attempt to block infected computers from accessing the security update Web sites of companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Microsoft, by adding text to a compromised PC's Hosts file.

Symantec has tracked numerous variations of the two new Mytob worms, with each threat being distributed from a number of different sender names and featuring a range of e-mail subject lines and message texts. Both Mytob.R and Mytob.S arrive in e-mails with subject lines that include the phrases "good day" and "mail transaction failed."

Most of the 13 iterations of the virus discovered since the beginning of this year are nearly identical, but one version, W32.Mytob.Q, which was reported by Symantec on Sunday, harbors a second low threat virus, W32.Pinfi.

[BADDOG]

I sometimes wish I could find the gits that create this things and shove a stick of dynamite some where that will get their attention and perhaps stop them from doing it!

Regards

[BOne]

bad dog...bad dog .... lol

actually i would like to capture one to see if i can manipulate it ... this summer im takin pc security and a big portion of that class is about virus' and malicious code ..
seeme like its gonna be a fun class

[Hellfighter]

will they are getting busted every day,

news' link on them hackers who got busted: www.viruslist.com/en/news

on sick "F" hackers:
www.viruslist.com/en/hackers



upper left you see the month click-on it to see who got busted in that time frame.

Originally posted by BADDOG
I sometimes wish I could find the gits that create this things and shove a stick of dynamite some where that will get their attention and perhaps stop them from doing it!

Regards

i would love to see them do time maybe 40yrs to life.