We know, it's sad but true. Our last weeks super-star, “the worm that does nothing”, has slowly declined it's spread.

We've been following it's evolution, however it seems the last version only has one additional feature: it can update itself to the latest version. It does this by exploiting the adodb.stream vulnerability in Internet Explorer to download a file from several hosts which contain instructions on the location of the new version. Although BitDefender detects this e-threat since January under the name VBS.Worm.Runauto.E it has not changed ever since. Seems like it's development stopped at version 10.0.

Nevertheless, this weeks malware evolution hasn't stopped with our friendly worm. Next we will look at a worm called Win32.Antiman.N. If infected with it, the victim will surely be ridden of a certain genre of music called "manele". It searches the entire hard disk for most "manele" artists and and will delete them. Next it will add a lot of entries to the %windir%system32drivershosts file to block social networking websites, like hi5 and netlog, and many free download websites that provide this genre of music. It will also send itself to the whole Yahoo Messenger list using a set number of strings in Romanian language that state something like: “I found a great new program for winamp (or for pictures).”

Posted by Annette King in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 15:06

An e-mail informing recipients that they have a package that the United Parcel Service could not deliver is actually a new computer virus, company officials said.

The e-mail that appears to come from UPS contains an attachment that recipients are told to open in order to make arrangements to pick up their shipment, UPS officials said.

The attachment is actually a computer virus, the company said.

Posted by Sean Cannon in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 11:27

G DATA (Germany), – The malware industry has shifted up a gear and, since the beginning of the year, has swamped the Internet with a malware flood of truly biblical proportions. On a daily basis some 1,500 new malware agents are unleashed against Windows users. In the first six months of the current year alone, G DATA Security Labs has recorded more than 318,000 new malware creations - more malicious code than in the whole of 2007, which was itself a record. If the growth rate remains the same, this would mean an increase of more than 400 percent by the end of 2008. By contrast, an all-clear for the owners of smartphones. The forecast danger for these devices has been shown to be a pure marketing ploy. Within the same period, only 20 new viruses surfaced. Online criminals do not currently regard smartphones as lucrative sources of income.


In 2008, the worldwide networking of online criminals finally bore its threatening fruit. In the G DATA 2008 semi-annual malware report, the Bochum IT security specialists give an insight into the current dangers for PC users.

Posted by Sean Cannon in Virus & AntiVirus News at 10:53