Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus and spam analysis centres, have warned users about an in-the-wild email worm which displays a picture of a famous albino gorilla as it infects innocent computers.
A Trojan continued to spread Monday among America Online instant messaging clients, and installs its backdoor on the infected PC when trusting users click on a link within the line "Check out this" or "i thought youd wanna see this" from a buddy on their AIM contact list.
A computer virus is hijacking phones and making long-distance calls to a variety of far-off -- and expensive -- places.
The virus enters the computer through downloaded soft-ware, then uses the computer's modem to make overseas calls repeatedly.
The Kentucky Attorney General's Office said some small nations use the virus to cash in on high access fees charged to incoming international calls. The long-distance carrier in this country, which is required to pay the fee, passes the cost on to the customer.
amigo: If you're interested in Internet banking security, be sure to check out Fabrice Marie's Hacking Internet Banking Applications at the upcoming HITBSecConf2005 - Malaysia where he'll be demonstrating some of the various attacks on your "bank next door", illustrated with real life statistics.
Because of its slow propagation and relatively minor damage potential, the world's Bluetooth Symbian phone users have failed to panic much over Cabir - but there are now new versions. And one uses MMS.
The Sober.P worm is still spreading fast and made up almost 5 percent of all e-mail traffic on Friday morning, according to a U.K. antivirus company.
Sophos said that the worm accounts for around 77 percent of all virus activity it is seeing. The company said the Sober variant is still spreading, even though large corporations appear to have patched the vulnerabilities that the virus uses to propagate.
Cybercriminals claimed on Friday that the Prime Minister's email account has been hacked, in the latest attempt to attack PCs with malware. On the same day Tony Blair won a third term in government, a spam message was sent out stating that malicious hackers had penetrated his email account.
Whoever wrote the Sober.P worm is persistent. The worm, which raced around the Internet this week, is the 18th version of a worm that first made it appearance two years ago. This one first surfaced in Western Europe on Monday and began to infect computers, but it fizzled out when it crossed the ocean and hit the United States. Today, security analysts and vendors are helping companies to clean up the mess Sober.P left behind and are reminding businesses how to prevent such worms from causing damage.
Sober.p, the worm that stormed the internet earlier this week, so far has shown no signs of fading away, an anti-virus vendor said.
"It's had quite the impact," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with Sophos. "Although it's not on the level of a really major worm, like Sobig last year, Sober is the biggest we've seen so far this year."
One in every 22 emails circulating the Internet on Wednesday contained the latest version of the Sober worm, according to latest statistics from a UK antivirus company.
Sophos claimed that the mass-mailing worm, which has been reported in 40 countries after first appearing on Monday, now accounts for 79 percent of all viruses the company is seeing.
