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Sydney (pte051/06.06.2003/16:39) - A new version of the so-called Bugbear virus has appeared, as reported by virus chasers Sophos and Symantec. The Bugbear.B worm is rapidly spreading in Australia and the USA, and experts fear it will soon spread to private PCs. However, properly updated and protected company networks and anti-virus programs should be able to stop the bug in its tracks http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32bugbearb.html .
Bugbear.B is very similar to its predecessor, which spread during the last months of 2002 and
took second place in the Sophos annual ranking. However, the new version is better at disguising itself, using an e-mail address found on the victim's PC to hide its origin. The worm then spreads to all e-mail addresses in the address book and attempts to spread through network resources.
The virus also tries to take advantage of the MIME ( Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extension) security gap in Outlook, which was discovered two years ago. If the patch has not been added, the virus can spread without the user opening the attachment - he must simply click on the e-mail and view the text in the preview.
The attachment containing the virus carries the extensions .exe, .scr or .pif. The subject line is generated by chance. The virus also attempts to install a backdoor function on the victim's system and tries to deactivate security features.
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