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| A number of different versions of the Bagle worm
have been spreading all year. |
Anti-virus experts at Sophos have warned users to be on the
lookout for a new variant of the Bagle email worm which has been
seen spreading quickly in the wild. Sophos is advising users to
ensure their anti-virus protection is up-to-date to protect against
attacks via email.
Sophos has received many reports of the W32/Bagle-AU worm, and
users opening their email today may be at risk from infection if
not properly protected.
Typical emails sent by the Bagle-AU worm have subject lines such
as "Re: Hello" or "Re: Thank you!", and contain file attachments
with names like "Price" or "Joke". If the file attachment is
launched the virus infects the computer, and attempts to spread to
other email addresses.
"Companies around the globe are reporting a large number of
instances of this new worm at their email gateways. Everyone who
has a computer needs to ensure they are protected against this new
version of the Bagle worm, as it could easily clog up email boxes
and slow communications down to treacle if it reaches a critical
mass," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"With so many new viruses emerging every month it's essential to
have a reliable anti-virus defence with an easy automatic updating
system in place."
Sophos defends customers with proactive protection
Although the W32/Bagle-AU worm was only discovered on 29 October
2004, Sophos anti-virus products have been capable of detecting it
proactively through their generic detection capabilities as
W32/Bagle-Gen since 22 September 2004, without requiring an
update.
"Sophos's proactive detection of this new version of the Bagle
worm demonstrates the high quality of the work done by our research
and development teams, and provides a world class level of
protection to millions of business customers around the globe,"
continued Cluley.
Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways with a
consolidated solution to thwart the virus
and spam threats as well as secure their desktop and servers with
automatically updated anti-virus protection.
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.