Computer virus writers at war, security firm says
Computer worms that have brought down systems around the world in recent days are starting to attack each other, Finnish software security firm F-Secure said on Wednesday.
"We seem to have a botwar on our hands," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure.
"There appear to be three different virus-writing gangs turning out new worms at an alarming rate, as if they were competing to build the biggest network of infected machines."
Hypponen said in a statement that varieties of three worms -- "Zotob," "Bozori" and "IRCbot" -- were still exploiting a gap in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 2000 operating system on computers that had not had the flaw repaired and were not shielded by firewalls.
L33tdawg: Be sure to catch Mikko Hypponen's keynote on Mobile Malware at HITBSecConf2005 - Malaysia on the 29th of September 9am, The Westin Kuala Lumpur.
