'A Hug & Roses'. That's what
it reads in the subject line of one of many emails
in circulation that carry a Worm possessing botnet
capabilities. According to Security Experts at MicroWorld
Technologies, 'Win32.Zhelatin.U' is spreading with
the help of a variety of subject lines painted with
love and affection, though the deeds of the worm aren't
quite romantic.
The email carrying the worm comes from Alysia, Emily,
Rachel or a variety of other names. The subject line
is more or less mushy, chosen from a list containing
- Everyone Needs Someone, Magic of Flowers, I Would
Do Anything, Cuddle Up, A Hug & Roses, The Mood
for Love, Moonlit Waterfall and many more.
"Love will never go out of fashion in the world
of malware proliferation," says Govind Rammurthy,
CEO of MicroWorld Technologies. "Especially in
the month of January and February, when New Year wishes
and Valentine messages fly all around us, these sorts
of mails are much effective in spreading nasty Worms
and Viruses."
All emails carry an attachment named as flash postcard.exe,
Greeting Card.exe or postcard. Once the victim clicks
on the downloaded attachment to run it, Zhelatin.U
launches an SMTP Proxy Server at a TCP port. It then
logs on to a malicious website to download botnet
setting up files and readies the computer to take
orders from the remote attacker and send spam. The
worm also harvests emails addresses from the compromised
computer and sends infected mails to those ids.
Once a user is infected by a Trojan or Worm having
botnet capabilities, the victim's computer becomes
a part of a large network of such computers taken
over by the attacker. While the victim continues to
work unaware of the happenings in the back of his
or her computer, all kinds of Spam, Phishing and Denial
of Service attacks are launched from the machine.
According to Rammurthy, the most effective way organizations
can combat these kinds of threats will be to check
them at the email Gateway, even before they are received
by the Mail Server. MailScan from MicroWorld Technologies
makes it possible by working on a unique Technology
named MWL (MicroWorld Winsock Layer) which scans and
cleans emails at the network layer. For Home Users,
MicroWorld provides protection with 'eScan - AntiVirus
and Content Security' that scans and cleans emails
before they are delivered to mail boxes, he adds.
MicroWorld
MicroWorld Technologies (www.mwti.net)
is the developer of the world's most advanced AntiVirus,
Content Security and Firewall software eScan,
MailScan,
and eConceal.
MicroWorld
Winsock Layer (MWL) is the revolutionary technology
that powers most of MicroWorld products enabling them
to achieve several certifications and awards by some
of the most prestigious testing bodies, notable among
them being Virus Bulletin, Checkmark, TUCOWS, Red
Hat Ready and Novell Ready.
To learn more, kindly visit http://www.mwti.net.
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