In the past 48 hours I have received copies of around a dozen very old
e-mail messages originally sent to these lists (some up to 2 years old),
which have been re-mailed automatically by the new "worm" virus known as
"BUGBEAR" - first identified by Norton on 30 September.

This is reported to be spreading very rapidly worldwide through Windows
installations, though those of us wise enough to be using Unix, Linux or
Macs should get nothing worse than a flood of virus alerts.

For Windows machines the position is very different.  Once infected
(through opening an infected message or attachment) Bugbear sets about
both attacking firewall and anti-virus software, and then re-mails
itself (often using spoofed "from" addresses) to any e-mail address it can
find on the newly infected machine, without the PC owner/operator knowing
this, disguising itself by sending the infected file out under the cover
of old e-mails that it finds on the infected PC.

If it is not picked up by your firewall or anti-virus software the only
hint that there is something wrong with an infected incoming e-mail may be
that some of the information in the e-mail looks out of date - if you are
lucky.

Norton rate this new worm as highly infective with a "medium" damage
risk: see http://www.norton.com/ which also has a removal tool for Norton
users.   No doubt other anti-virus services are by now offering this as
well.



Patrick Boylan

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