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By James Pearce
Posted on ZDNet News: Feb 24, 2004 4:08:00 PM

E-mail inboxes are being swamped as Netsky.B continues to increase its infection rate.

The worm first appeared on February 17 and appears to have originated in the Netherlands. MessageLabs, an e-mail management company, claims to have stopped more than 1.3 million e-mail since the virus started spreading, and believes the infection rate is increasing rapidly. Symantec has rated the worm as severe. This means the worm is a dangerous threat and is difficult to contain.

The worm does require the user to open the attachment with the e-mail. "These days it's less to do with technology, with the code of the virus, and more to do with social engineering," David Banes of MessageLabs told ZDNet Australia.

Netsky.B scans the hard drives and shared drives of an infected computer for e-mail addresses and then uses its own SMTP engine to mail itself to those addresses. The worm also searches for folder names containing "share" or "sharing" and copies itself to those folders using a variety of file names.

The worm appears in the Inbox using a spoofed "from" address and a subject line chosen from one of the following: hi, hello, read it immediately, something for you, warning, information, stolen, fake, unknown. The body of the e-mail contains a variety of messages, and the attachment will normally have a double-file name or be a zip file. When the file is opened it displays a message "The file could not be opened!" before going to work.

In the last 24 hours, MessageLabs has stopped more than 10 times as many Netsky.B worms as MyDoom worms.

Netsky.B prevention and cure.

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  • Talkback
  • Most Recent of 57 Talkback(s)
sure
look if u wanna get technical, i can attack you also..... we learned in 5th grade here, that you are not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Would you like to count how many times you did j... (Read the rest)
Posted by: engel000 Posted on: 02/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | | Terms of Use
Don't use Microtrash! Problems precluded  Bobby Sskcat | 02/24/04
I'll be back...  CaptainObvious | 02/24/04
The saga continues . . . .  DonnieBoy | 02/24/04
Just like the battery bunny rabbit: it just keeps going and going..  Bobby Sskcat | 02/24/04
Feature bloat isn't the problem here  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
not in this case,  ryusen | 02/24/04
Email scripts can read address books and send email. We don't need that.  DonnieBoy | 02/24/04
Most aren't scripts these days  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
Yes, but you can double click and execute.  DonnieBoy | 02/24/04
Double Click and Execute  jfrankcarr | 02/25/04
One more thing, it is the aggregate complexity.  DonnieBoy | 02/24/04
stupid people need stupid OS's  engel000 | 02/24/04
The Linux Charm Offensive in action again  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
spelling...  engel000 | 02/24/04
Ah...Even More Linux Attitude  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
okay, lemme try again  engel000 | 02/25/04
Spell Much?  GeoFrank | 02/25/04
sure  engel000 | 02/25/04
This is NOT A MICROSOFT Security Problem!  Heatlesssun | 02/24/04
Singing to the Choir  JoseTorr | 02/24/04
Even more ways  OhMyGosh | 02/24/04
Oh good!  Jay Cash | 02/24/04
Yes it is. Only retards use Microsoft.  Bobby Sskcat | 02/24/04
Ah...pouring on the Linux 'charm' today  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
Don't see where I said that I use linux  Bobby Sskcat | 02/24/04
Professional image  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
If it's cheaper and it works better it will sell. End of story..  Bobby Sskcat | 02/24/04
Works both ways  NoB$ | 02/24/04
More Linux Attitude Syndrome  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
Well Said  GeoFrank | 02/25/04
With XP  V Sanders | 02/24/04
Xp's firewall  ryusen | 02/24/04
XP's built-in firewall is a joke  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
About that patch...  Cardinal_Bill | 02/24/04
Oh, I see.  Immanuel Tranz-Mischen | 02/24/04
Good. And all the multi-megabyte patches  michael-t | 02/24/04
Here's an Idea to eliminate Viruses  BSCpEUSF | 02/24/04
Deal with many Sales/Marketing types?  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
one problem:  ryusen | 02/24/04
Just Curious  RedHat9User | 02/24/04
The use of Linux would mitigate the spread...  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
Read it, but not convinced  RedHat9User | 02/24/04
Somewhat agree....  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
Maybe this will convince you  Richard Flude | 02/24/04
And this...  PA-ITGuy | 02/24/04
And that...  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
I've heard this claim, give examples  NoB$ | 02/24/04
well...  PA-ITGuy | 02/24/04
Here's how....  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
It depends...  Cardinal_Bill | 02/24/04
Hardware is the big issue I see  jfrankcarr | 02/24/04
Got Drivers?  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
Depends on who is paying at the time.  NoB$ | 02/24/04
Stupid People  Doink | 02/24/04
Lack of competency...  Jose Jimenez | 02/24/04
Stupid People  Domb2 | 02/24/04
stupid people  wwindy1st | 02/25/04

What do you think?

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