VBMania: New worm ‘spreading like wildfire’

McAfee and others are reporting a new and fast spreading worm, currently dubbed the “Here you have” virus, which spreads via emails with the subject line “Here you have” or “Just for you”.

In the content of the email is a link to a Web site that hosts the virus. Since the actual virus file is not on the user’s computer, it’s very easy to evade anti-virus protection.

Once the virus infects a computer, it then sends itself to all the addresses in the computer user’s address book. The new emails appear as if they were sent by the infected user, which of course they were. Unsuspecting users are apparently clicking on the links by the hundreds of thousands.

Symantec says the new worm also:

  • Spread through mapped drives through autorun
  • Spread through email by taking contacts from the address book
  • Spread through instant messenger
  • Disables various security related programs

MacAfee provides the forensics and disinfection tools.