New Bugbear Worm Mauls PCs

A variant on the fast-spreading Bugbear worm has begun rapidly infecting the UK after appearing in the US and Australia overnight. The worm follows on the heels of a new Sobig virus A new variant of the Bugbear virus — Win32.Bugbear.B — has emerged and threatens corporate and home computer systems, according to anti-virus experts. Computer Associates expert Jakub Kaminsky on Wednesday confirmed the company’s anti-virus laboratories had received their first sample of the variant from an Australian user late on Thursday afternoon, Australian time, but had seen nothing from their customers since. Other security firms have also discovered the new worm “in the wild”, or affecting computers outside the lab. IDefense first found Bugbear.B in Australia and the US on Wednesday, and said it has since gained ground rapidly. Messagelabs, which runs outsourced email servers for 700,000 customers around the world, said it had filtered out 190 emails infected with the worm in 20 countries as of Thursday morning at 10 a.m. BST, but the number had risen to 1,654 in 56 countries by 11 a.m. The first Bugbear worm spread rapidly last autumn, creating about 320,000 infected messages in its first week, according to MessageLabs. This week has already seen another significant virus threat emerge with the spread of W32/Sobig.C-mm, which has generated about 30,000 infected messages per day this week, according to MessageLabs. Full Story