19 Jun 2003
Sobig-D worm is no big deal
The W32/Sobig-D
worm, first seen on 18 June, is proving not to be as successful at
spreading as its earlier variants.
The worm spreads via email using a variety of subject lines and
attachment names, and can also propagate through network shares.
Earlier versions of the worm, such as W32/Sobig-C and W32/Sobig-B, would
sometimes pretend to come from Bill Gates at Microsoft or Microsoft
technical support.
"This latest version of the Sobig worm does not appear currently
to be spreading anything like as quickly as its earlier
incarnations," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for
Sophos Anti-Virus. "However, our advice to computer users remains
the same: keep your virus protection up-to-date and be wary of
opening unsolicited email attachments. Businesses should seriously
consider blocking unwanted executable content from coming into
their company at the email gateway."
Sophos recommends companies consider blocking all executable
code at their email gateway. It is rarely necessary to allow users
to receive programs via email from the outside world. There is so
little to lose, and so much to gain, simply by blocking all emailed
programs, regardless of whether they contain viruses or not. Users
of Sophos MailMonitor for SMTP can achieve this through its
threat reduction
capability.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.