18 Feb 2004
Sophos warns of Netsky-B worm spreading widely
Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and
viruses, is warning of a new worm called Netsky-B (W32/Netsky-B).
It has already received several reports of this worm spreading in
the wild.
The worm spreads via email - forwarding itself to email
addresses found on the hard drives of infected computers - and
Windows network shares.
When forwarding itself, the worm spoofs the 'From:' field to
trick unsuspecting computer users into running the malicious code.
Infected emails arrive with a variety of different subject lines
and message texts. An attached file has a double extension.
The worm chooses from a selection of filenames when copying
itself to shared folders. These names vary from 'angels.pif',
'dictionary.doc.exe' and 'programming basics.doc.exe' to 'sex sex
sex sex.doc.exe' and 'hardcore porn.jpg.exe'.
"Worms like this, which don't just rely on email to spread,
underline the need for anti-virus protection on the desktop -
computer users shouldn't just be relying on email scanning for
protection," said Carole Theriault, security consultant, Sophos.
"Netsky-B is tricky to identify because of the wide variety of
subject lines and message texts, but blocking all files with double
extensions is an easy way to avoid infection."
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.