Expert fears MyDoom mutant
2004-01-29 14:07
Helsinki - The second variant of the MyDoom virus was on Thursday likely to overtake its predecessor in becoming the most widely spread computer bug, as it uses the first version's features to proliferate further, a computer security expert warned.
"The Mydoom.B variant is spreading quite quickly now," Mikael Albrecht, with Finnish Internet security firm F-Secure, said.
"It's still smaller than the A variant, but the B version will probably become as big as the first version, if not bigger," he warned.
First detected on Wednesday evening, the latest variant uses a backdoor function of the first version to update itself and attack more computers.
"When it infects a computer, it starts to scan for other infected computers in the network, using the earlier version's backdoor function to update itself," he said.
Since the Mydoom.A was detected on Monday night it has clogged the internet by sending hundred of millions of infected e-mails throughout the world.
Most of those mails never reach their destinations however, having been stopped by the anti-virus protection of corporate networks, analysts said.
It was estimated that by Wednesday evening one in three e-mails sent worldwide was generated by the Mydoom.A bug.
The spreading of this variant was however levelling out on Thursday, experts said, as many computer users had updated their anti-virus software.
Since the new variant slips into computers unnoticed by the detection software made for the Mydoom.A version, security experts urged computer users to update their anti-virus software frequently to make sure they are immune from the latest bugs.
Many anti-virus software firms have posted free detection software and intersections on how to get rid of the bugs on the websites free of charge.