Researchers at BT have developed a monitoring tool that identifies viruses carried by e-mail which have, as yet, remained undetectable by existing anti-virus systems.
The tool, VENUS (which stands for Viral Email Network Utilization Symptomizer) monitors the intranet email for symptoms of any new and unknown viruses that have penetrated normal anti-virus defences by identifying previously unknown behaviour, and then proactively prevents their spread within the company.
Deloitte has predicted that a massive growth in the number of connected devices – from PCs and mobile phones to digital music players and gaming consoles – will cause a corresponding leap in electronic devices and other malicious attacks. The mobile phone virus reported over the weekend marks the beginning of this new era.
Several new worms have been spotted in the wild today including a variant of Sober, which has so far hit the radar screens of many major antivirus firms; a variant of Bropia; and a new MyDoom – taking the total number of variants of that worm beyond 50.
However, despite a flurry of activity none of these worms are cause for too much concern at current levels. The Sober.K worm is a mass-mailer and some versions intercepted by UK email security firm MessageLabs pose as a virus warning urging users to download a patch to protect them from the very worm they install by doing so.
A newly discovered variant of the mass-mailing Sober email worm is spreading rapidly and has already been spotted in the UK, according to MessageLabs.
The email security company said that it has intercepted 1,400 copies of W32.Sober-K-mm since 5am GMT this morning in Germany, France, the US and the UK.
Sober-K-mm sends itself as an attachment and creates random subject lines and body texts in either English or German, depending on the email addresses harvested by the worm.
Finnish anti-virus research company F-Secure reports that the first mobile phone virus, called Cabir, has made it's way to the United States since it's discovery in the Philippines over eight months ago. The Cabir virus and it's twelve varients are known to prematurely drain cell phone batteries.
On Monday, Mikko Hypponen, director F-Secure, discovered Cabir on a Nokia cell phone in a technology gadgets store in Santa Monica, California, where someone spotted a telltale sign on the screen of the phone. The store owner's cell phone had also been infected.
Another variant of the MyDoom worm, which spreads by sending copies of itself using its own mail engine and harvesting potential e-mail targets from search engines such as Google and Yahoo, was spreading quickly on Thursday.
Last summer, a MyDoom variant pumped so many queries into Google that the search engine was unavailable or very slow for large periods of time. The same variant of MyDoom also succeeded in knocking a number of smaller search engines--including Lycos and Altavista--off the Web completely.
Antivirus companies are researching reports that computer viruses have attacked the onboard computers of cars.
Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs was asked last weekend how to disinfect the onboard computers of several Lexus models: LX470, LS430 and Landcruiser 100. The security company was told that the infection likely occurred via a mobile phone.
Computer users have been warned to be on their guard when viewing images after the discovery of a vulnerability affecting the processing of PNG (Portable Network Graphic) files by popular applications including MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player.
The issue affects applications including Windows Media Player 9.0 (when running on Windows 2000, XP Service Pack 1 and Server 2003), Windows Messenger version 5.0 (standalone version that can be installed on all supported operating systems), and MSN Messenger 6.1 and 6.2.
A variety of consumer products--from smart phones to digital theater boxes, and from car navigation systems to home security gear--have gone digital. In addition, wireless connectivity has become a cheap add-on for gadgets. With that new technology comes exposure to a digital ill already the scourge of PC users: computer viruses.
"Like humans in a sterile environment, an unconnected device has no chance of infection," said Dan Cregg, vice president of home-automation company Smarthome. "But once you are connected to the outside world, then you are in danger."
IBM IS warning of an epidemic of viruses and worms attacking handheld devices, cellphones, wireless networks and embedded computers this year.
According to the IBM Global Business Security Index Report for 2004, e-mail worms and viruses wrought the most havoc on corporate networks last year.
Big Blue is becoming increasingly alarmed about the growing number of viruses aimed at PDAs and other mobile devices that started to appear towards the year's end.
