Like a city corner that has fallen victim to the graffiti tag signs of rival gangs, the Internet has now become the basis of a war of words and worms between virus writers, who are unleashing virus variants to eat one another’s work and spread to more computers. The exchange among virus writers and the release of several variants taking part in the battle — different versions of the Netsky, Bagle and Mydoom worms — does not involve particularly damaging or malicious code, but it is causing chaos, according to virus fighters. “The volume and rate at which these new Netsky, Bagle and Mydoom variants are surfacing is unprecedented,” said an advisory earlier this week from Network Associates’ (NYSE: NET) McAfee Avert. The company reported that messages in the code of the variants were directed at other virus authors, adding that some of the variants had infected at least two Fortune 500 companies. McAfee fellow Jimmy Kuo told TechNewsWorld that with one or two variants being raised to a medium-level threat most days so far this week, the fight seems to be settling somewhat as the weekend approaches. However, Kuo indicated the spate of variants has been a burden on the security community. “It’s a huge drain on our resources and on the energy of administrators managing networks and computers and securing the Internet,” Kuo said. “It’s keeping us all at our terminals. It’s just a very draining affair.” Full Story
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