Sober Virus Turns "Epidemic"
Posted: 04th May, 2005 By: MarkJ
Anti-virus firms have issued strong warnings following the release of a new Sober e-mail worm virus on Monday, which has spread so fast that it's being labelled an "epidemic":
Sober.P, first detected on Monday, now accounts for 77 percent of all viruses detected by Sophos's threat-monitoring stations worldwide, the British security company said on Tuesday. At the same time, Kaspersky Labs, a Russian maker of antivirus software designed to combat such threats, described the worm's spread in Western Europe as an "epidemic".
"This is a pretty significant virus. We usually don't see it spread to 77 percent of all inbound viruses," Gregg Mastoras, a senior security analyst at Sophos, said. "Usually, it spreads much slower, and users have time to update their computers."
The latest Sober offshoot, which has been tagged as Sober.N, Sober.O or Sober.S at other security companies, uses email written in both English and German. One of its lures is a message saying the recipient has won free tickets to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Once victims open the infected attachment, the virus harvests email addresses from their machine. The virus then copies itself onto the user's computer and then sends a similar email to the harvested addresses.
The ZDNet item reports that Sober is heading towards being the worst virus of the year, at least.
Sober.P, first detected on Monday, now accounts for 77 percent of all viruses detected by Sophos's threat-monitoring stations worldwide, the British security company said on Tuesday. At the same time, Kaspersky Labs, a Russian maker of antivirus software designed to combat such threats, described the worm's spread in Western Europe as an "epidemic".
"This is a pretty significant virus. We usually don't see it spread to 77 percent of all inbound viruses," Gregg Mastoras, a senior security analyst at Sophos, said. "Usually, it spreads much slower, and users have time to update their computers."
The latest Sober offshoot, which has been tagged as Sober.N, Sober.O or Sober.S at other security companies, uses email written in both English and German. One of its lures is a message saying the recipient has won free tickets to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Once victims open the infected attachment, the virus harvests email addresses from their machine. The virus then copies itself onto the user's computer and then sends a similar email to the harvested addresses.
The ZDNet item reports that Sober is heading towards being the worst virus of the year, at least.
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