[bksvol-discuss] ot possibility for last week with the strange emails
- From: "robert tweedy" <rtweedy2@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 16:20:32 -0500
Sober worm hits new heights
Published: May 9, 2005, 8:54 AM PDT
By
Dan Ilett
Special to CNET News.com
The Sober.P worm is circulating the Internet in greater quantities than
ever, accoring
to antivirus company Sophos.
Sophos says the mass-mailing worm accounted for 5.4 percent of all e-mail
the company
saw over the weekend and 84 percent of virus activity. That represents an
increase
compared with Friday
, when Sophos said the worm accounted for 4.65 percent of all e-mail and 77
percent
of virus activity.
"The strange thing is that we're actually seeing more reports than ever,"
said
Graham Cluley
, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "It's increased, and it's even
worse than
last week. We don't know how many people are infected, but those infected
are just
spewing these e-mails out."
Cluley said the second most prevalent e-mail threat, the
Netsky.P
virus, accounted for 0.3 percent of all such threats, and the
Zafi.D
worm, the third most common, accounted for just 0.08 percent. "Those have
been big
viruses but have been dwarfed by the Sober worm," he said.
Last week, Sophos said the worm turned off Symantec's antivirus protection
and Microsoft's
Windows XP firewall on infected machines.
Sober.P--which security companies have variously tagged as Sober.N, Sober.O
and Sober.S--travels
as an attachment in e-mails written in English and German
. One of the most widely reported e-mails contains an alluring message
stating that
the recipient has won free tickets to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, but
many other
types have also been spotted. Once opened, the virus sends itself to e-mail
addresses
harvested from the newly infected machine.
Dan Ilett of
ZDNet UK
reported from London.
Other related posts:
