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New Virus
March 19, 2004
Bagle.q, Bagle.r, Bagle.s, Bagle.t
These viruses take advantage of a five-month-old vulnerability in Internet Explorer that lets them infect computers without having to convince users to open a file attachment. Bagle.q -- which was quickly followed by three variants, named Bagle.r, Bagle.s, and Bagle.t -- follows in the path of earlier editions of the worm by arriving as e-mail, opening a backdoor to the system so it can be re-infected or loaded with other malicious code, and attaching itself to executable files found on the hard drive to make it even more difficult to dislodge. The big difference in this newest Bagle wave is that it can infect unpatched PCs without the usual file attachment. Like their immediate predecessors, Bagle.q, Bagle.r, Bagle.s, and Bagle.t also disable a huge number of anti-virus and firewall programs, another tactic hackers have used to slip by defenses. These latest viruses are most effective against users of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail product who have "message preview" enabled. To avoid infection by any of these viruses, make sure to disable Outlooks auto preview option. Also, make sure you system has all of the most recent Microsoft patches applied. To be on the safe side, I suggest you Set Automatic Update on Your Computer if you are running Windows XP. If you are not running windows XP visit microsoft.com for instructions on how to apply the most recent security updates.
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