Four new Bagle worms added to Internet soup
Virus writers produce four more versions of the Bagle worm: Q, R, S and T. The worms exploit an ActiveX vulnerability for those that haven't updated Windows.
Virus writers' penchant for modifying the source code for the program has resulted in four new variants--Bagle.Q, Bagle.R, Bagle.S and Bagle.T--in the past two days, antivirus firms said on Thursday.
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The viruses attempt to use
"It is definitely a new thing that is involved," said Oliver Friedrichs, a senior manager in Symantec's security response team. "Most of the vulnerabilities used in the past have the program as part of the virus."
The four new variants of the virus, which Symantec calls "Beagle," add to
the slew of slightly modified programs attempting to
infect Internet users. Virus writers have used the Bagle, NetSky and
MyDoom worms to attempt to
The latest Bagle variants add an infection mechanism, which uses a flaw in Windows that was patched in August. PC users who haven't updated the operating systems could, upon viewing an e-mail message containing the virus, cause their system to download and run a malicious program.
However, many of the Web sites that had acted as locations from which to download the attack code have been taken offline, said Friedrichs.