New worm given severe rating
A computer virus aimed at collating millions of email addresses for resale to the lucrative spam market is feverishly working its way across the internet.
The code known as “Bagle” or “Beagle” has been written primarily to garner email addresses and to turn infected computers into “spamming” machines.
Virus-detection firms had given the worm a severe rating.
One variant of the email contains the everyday subject line “Hi” and comes with an executable file attached. The body of the email contains random characters.
The “beagle” email has a short message with the words “test” and ends with “testing, yep.”
Several universities and large companies have already been hit.
The current worm has a built-in expiry date. It will cease running on January 28th. But security experts say other variants may flourish after that date.
