PANDA SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES RED ALERT FOR COMPUTER VIRUS: W32/Mydoom.A.worm

PANDA SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES RED ALERT FOR COMPUTER VIRUS: W32/Mydoom.A.worm New Worm MyDoom.A CAUSES Numerous Infections in Corporate Environments in Few Hours Glendale, CA, January, 26, 2004 - New worm Mydoom.A.worm has already reached red alert status according to the virus labs of Panda Software. There have already been many incidences with thousands of users in numerous countries. The ability of MyDoom.A to spread rapidly, as well as the damage it is leaving behind, makes Mydoom.A.worm as serious as last summers Bugbear and Blaster. • Repair and detection is also available via www.pandasoftware.com/activescan • Thousands of users are affected by fast spreading worm using the social engineering techniques. • New worm does not take advantage of any Microsoft vulnerability’s to infect the computers • New worm installs a file that opens the TCP port 3127 allowing the computer external control • It also uses KaZaa to spread, copying itself in the user shared folder. • Panda Software has made available to all Panda users detection and disinfection for this worm Mydoom.A forwards itself to all the addresses found in the affected computers. As other countries begin the the usual workday increasing computer activity it is expected that this virus will grow and create more issues. Mydoom.A comes via an e-mail message with an attached file. Like the other recent virus epidemics, social engineering techniques cheat the user making the think they are supposed to open the file. The virus not only infects the computer that received the e-mail but then mails itself to all the contacts found in addresses book. In addition, it opens the TCP port 3127 in the infected computer, allowing remote control of the computer. It means any malicious hacker may get access and steal, modify or destroy any kind of Information stored in the computer. As additional Information, this virus is ready to launch a Denial of Service attack against the web site www.sco.com next February, 1st this year. Mydoom.A.worm search e-mail addresses in the computer files with the extensions: .htm, .sht, .php, .asp, .dbx, .tbb, .adb, .pl, .wab, .txt. It uses its own SMTP engine to send itself by e-mail. The message content changes, and may be composed by the following sentences: Subject: test hi hello Mail Delivery System Mail Transaction Failed Server Report Status Error Body: Mail Transaction Failed. Partial message is available. The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment. The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding and has been sent as a binary attachment Attached file name: document readme doc text file data test message body File extension: .pif .scr .exe .cmd .bat .zip Once the virus has infected the computer, it then searches for the peer-to-peer file sharing Network KaZaa. If KaZaa is detected a file is copied to the shared folder allowing its distribution via this peer to peer system. The filename may be one of the following ones: winamp5 icq2004-final activation_crack strip-girl-2.0bdcom_patches rootkitXP office_crack nuke2004 and PIF, .SCR o .BAT extension. Panda Software offers updates to all its customers to detect and eliminate Mydoom.A.worm. Users who have not enabled automatic updates can upgrade the antivirus in http://www.pandasoftware.com/. Due to the possibility of being infected by Mydoom.A.worm, Panda Software advises users to treat all e-mails received with caution, and to update their antivirus solutions as soon as possible and installing a good firewall. Similarly, users can also detect and disinfect this and other malicious code using the free, online antivirus, Panda ActiveScan, which is available on the company’s website at http://www.pandasoftware.com. Detailed technical information on Mydoom.A.worm is available from Panda Software’s Virus Encyclopedia. About PandaLabs: On receiving a possibly infected file, Panda Software's technical staff gets straight down to work. The file is analyzed and depending on the type, the action taken may include: disassembly, macro scanning, code analysis etc. If the file does in fact contain a new virus, the disinfection and detection routines are prepared and quickly distributed to users. For more information: Alan Wallace [email protected] Tel. (818) 543-6909