Jan 27, 2004 : MyDoom Email Virus Spreading Rapidly
📅 - The MyDoom email virus, spreading quickly around the world has alreadycaused $850 million worth of business productivity losses, according to estimates by the mi2g Intelligence Unit (mi2g.net).
The virus, which began spreading yesterday at about 9 pm. GMT. is also known asW32.Novarg.A@mm or WORM_MIMAIL.R. The virus disguises itself as a returned email andcontains an executable attachment that is meant to look like a text-file attachment.
"Although it is too early to say how much cumulative damage is likely, it would seemthat MyDoom's purpose is to carry out mass identity theft and clog networks," saidDK Matai, executive chairman of mi2g. "There is a distributed denial of servicecomponent targeting a specific vendor site as well."
The vendor site cited by Matai is the Web site of SCO, a software companycurrently embroiled in several legal battles with Linux vendors over UNIX licensingcopyrights.
According to research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com), sites infected by the virus willattempt to launch a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on the sco.com Website on Feb. 1, 2004. Netcraft reported that after the virus began spreadingyesterday, the sco.com Web site was down briefly.
Web performance measurement, testing and management company Keynote Systems (keynote.com) conducted a Web site performance teston the top 40 business Web sites in the United States for the time period 8 am. ESTto 6 pm. EST, coinciding with yesterday's spread of the virus.
According to Keynote's results, performance for the top 40 sites slowed as averagedownload speeds averaged over four seconds, higher than the typical two to three seconds.
The latest major virus attack follows the Sobig and MS Blaster viruses that spreadworldwide last year.
The virus, which began spreading yesterday at about 9 pm. GMT. is also known asW32.Novarg.A@mm or WORM_MIMAIL.R. The virus disguises itself as a returned email andcontains an executable attachment that is meant to look like a text-file attachment.
"Although it is too early to say how much cumulative damage is likely, it would seemthat MyDoom's purpose is to carry out mass identity theft and clog networks," saidDK Matai, executive chairman of mi2g. "There is a distributed denial of servicecomponent targeting a specific vendor site as well."
The vendor site cited by Matai is the Web site of SCO, a software companycurrently embroiled in several legal battles with Linux vendors over UNIX licensingcopyrights.
According to research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com), sites infected by the virus willattempt to launch a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on the sco.com Website on Feb. 1, 2004. Netcraft reported that after the virus began spreadingyesterday, the sco.com Web site was down briefly.
Web performance measurement, testing and management company Keynote Systems (keynote.com) conducted a Web site performance teston the top 40 business Web sites in the United States for the time period 8 am. ESTto 6 pm. EST, coinciding with yesterday's spread of the virus.
According to Keynote's results, performance for the top 40 sites slowed as averagedownload speeds averaged over four seconds, higher than the typical two to three seconds.
The latest major virus attack follows the Sobig and MS Blaster viruses that spreadworldwide last year.
Reads: 1622 | Category: General | Source: TheWHIR : Web Host Industry Reviews
URL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/myd012704.cfm
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