Yahoo! News Story - Spammers' Scavenging E-Mail Virus Surfaces on Net

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Technology - ReutersSpammers' Scavenging E-Mail Virus Surfaces on Net

Tue Jan 20, 4:13 AM ET

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LONDON (Reuters) - A new computer virus capable of harvesting millions of e-mail

addresses from infected PCs was rapidly spreading across the Internet Monday,

security experts said.

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Online Games Take Off

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The infection, known as " Bagle " or " Beagle, " appears to be the handiwork of

spammers keen to collect a batch of e-mail addresses they can then re-sell to

other spam e-mail marketers or keep for their own use.

" Bagle " also contains code that could turn an infected computer into a veritable

" spamming " machine.

Security experts said it is patterned after the recent " Sobig " and " Mimail "

outbreaks, which also turned scores of computers into zombie machines that

spammers can control remotely to send torrents of get-rich-quick and sex aid

messages to other computer users.

" It seems perfectly possible that Bagle is yet another worm written by spammers.

When they have enough infected computers, they could automatically install

invisible e-mail proxy servers on each machine and start spamming through them, "

said Mikko Hypponen, research manager at Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure.

A host of virus-detection firms had placed their most severe ratings on the

e-mail, noting it was spreading quickly from Asia through Europe and now to the

United States.

The e-mail infection, or worm, contains a familiar subject line of " Hi " and an

executable file attachment identified by " .exe. " The body of the e-mail contains

random characters.

The virus is triggered once a computer user clicks on the attachment, setting in

motion an aggressive e-mail harvesting program that scans all documents on the

infected computer and throughout the network it is attached to.

Computer analysts said most corporate e-mail filters should be able to block the

infected e-mail, but that home users were particularly vulnerable.

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