AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -
A new computer worm emerged on Tuesday which broke the speed record
from the announcement of a security vulnerability in Microsoft's
Internet Explorer to a full-blown virus that spreads in the wild.
The vulnerability was discovered and made public by two hackers with
aliases "ned" and "SkyLined" on Friday, and only four days later a
worm exploiting the weakness was developed and set loose, several
virus-trackers reported.
Microsoft said the worm is a variant of MyDoom and that it was
investigating the threat the worm poses.
Some anti-virus companies said the new worm was different from MyDoom
because it spreads via weblinks and not e-mail attachments.
"People will receive an e-mail saying that their PayPal account has
been credited or that they are invited to watch a webcam. When they
click on the link, just by viewing a site it executes code and infects
the computer," said technical consultant Graham Cluley at Sophos
Anti-Virus.
Microsoft was expected to issue its monthly batch of security patches
later on Tuesday, but the company could not immediately say if a patch
for the new worm would be part of it.
However, the U.S. software giant said that consumers who had installed
Service Pack 2 for Windows XP were at a reduced risk.
The weakness in Internet Explorer is known as the IFRAME buffer
overflow vulnerability.
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Lisa Minter (lisa-minter2001@yahoo.com)