Madrid, March 3, 2004 - Variants D, B and C of Netsky, and E and C of Bagle
are still spreading rapidly and infecting a large number of computers. These
threats are now accompanied by Mydoom.A which, after causing a worldwide
epidemic in January, is once again generating incidents around the globe.
According to data collected by PandaLabs, thousands of computers in
corporate environments are currently infected by these malicious code and
millions of e-mail infected by one of these worms are in circulation.
This situation is made worse by the constant appearance of new variants,
such as J and K of Bagle, and variant G of Mydoom. The code of these new
variants include messages aimed at the author of Netsky that criticize this
worm and challenge the Netsky author to a war. The latest variant of Netsky
to emerge is F, which accepts the challenge of these malicious code.
"This is the first time," explains Luis Corrons, PandaLabs manager, "that
confrontation between virus authors has been so clearly demonstrated. For
this reason and due to virus authors' thirst for attention, we can expect
new variants to appear that will try to steal the spotlight."
Data collected by Panda ActiveScan, Panda Software's free, online antivirus,
shows that over the last few hours, Netsky.D was the culprit in over three
percent of incidents, followed by Netky.B (with over two percent), Mydoom.A,
Netsky.C, Nachi.B, Bagle.E, Bagle.C, Mydoom.F, Bagle.F and Bagle.H.
Referring to the dominance of these new viruses in the Top Ten viruses that
are having the biggest impact worldwide, Luis Corrons highlights "the
important change that they are causing. Up until now", he explains, "the
first few positions in the ranking were occupied by malicious code that have
been around for a few months. However, it is now variants of worms that have
emerged over the last few days that are heading the list, which demonstrates
just how dangerous they are. For this reason", he concludes, "it is more
important than ever to ensure that you have an effective and updated
antivirus installed that is capable of detecting these new malicious code
that are infecting computers worldwide."

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic