“A new worm that tries to take advantage of Windows users anxious to get their hands on security updates began making the rounds on Thursday, several antivirus firms confirmed,” Gregg Keizer reports for TechWeb News. “The worm, which goes by a variety of names, including Swen, W32/Swen@MM, Gibe, and W32/Gibe-F, can pose as an E-mail from Microsoft bearing a bogus security update as a file attachment.”
“It spreads in several ways, including the traditional mass-mailing method of stealing addresses from Outlook address books on compromised machines, but also propagates over Internet Relay Chat and peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa. Successful infections attempt to steal account information, including usernames and passwords,” Keizer reports. “The worm also exploits a 2-year-old vulnerability in Windows–for which a fix is available from Microsoft–that allows it to auto-execute on unpatched PCs. In those situations, the receiving system is infected even if its user doesn’t open the attached file.” Full article here.
Macintosh computers are unaffected. Windows-only users interested in adding a Mac OS X machine to their computing arsenal can get more information here. Apple Retail Store locations can be found here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
Wall Street Journal’s Mossberg on making the switch from Windows to Mac – September 18, 2003
ZDNet’s Coursey: Microsoft should start new OS from scratch to be more like Mac OS X – July 29, 2003
ZDNet asks: will Windows ever be as stable as the Mac? – April 21, 2003
Keep ’em coming script kiddies. If this is what it takes to open the sheeps’ eyes, so be it. The world would be better off with Macintosh than Windows. And global productivity would skyrocket along with the corresponding decrease in frustration and anger. Gates will go down in history as the world’s most successful charlatan.
Trustworthy Computing? What a joke!
Windows OS? What a joke!
Bill Gates? What a joker!
I don’t think the world would be a better place with Mac instead of Windows. Competition is good. I’d like to see Windows and Linux each maintain a firm 10-15% market share of the desktop. Just so long as it’s not me!
No.
Mac OSX – 33%
Lixux – 33%
ABM OS – 33%
Any M$ Windows ‘OS’- 0%
Keep 3 WinPCs for each Bill, Bomber, and the Smithsonian to each have one (1) for a keepsake.
FWIW, competition is good. But, M$ doesn’t compete, yet they ALWAYS win.
It’s not that they ALWAYS win that upsets, but look at what they win with, fer’crissakes – their products are junk.
Their ‘OS’ is a milk product from Europe.
They lock their users (M$ doesn’t view YOU as a customer) into the most backasswards ‘standards’.
They screw YOU with endless, meaningless, costly ‘upgrades’. And people love it.
Yet, anyone that is sceptical of M$ and uses any other OS is named a zealot ‘KoolAid’ guzzler.
Yeah, this is no big deal for us — except for the giant reeking inconvenience of having to check my email every hour to get the dozens of stupid 104k attachments trashed so my IMAP mailbox doesn’t get full and thereby temporarily disable my ability to receive mail.
!@#$%-ing Microsoft!
Agreed, Nagromme! But I’d settle for 30-40% market share maximum for our dear Mac platform. Clearly enough for software developers to take seriously, enough incomes for Apple to keep up (the already excelent) R&D but hopefully not enough to draw the attention of the bad boys. And when in dreamland, why not 30% mac, 30% other Linux/Un*x and 40% Wincrap?
“The worm also exploits a 2-year-old vulnerability in Windows–for which a fix is available from Microsoft–that allows it to auto-execute on unpatched PCs. In those situations, the receiving system is infected even if its user doesn’t open the attached file.”
Apparently Micros**t has a weird understanding of “fixing” and “patching” a security flaw.
An unpatched PC have the worm exploiting the flaw even if the attachment is NOT opened. A patched PC requires the user to open the attachment for the worm to exploit the flaw. And many users will open the attachment anyway.
Isn’t that just laughable?
I used to just laugh because I was “unaffected”. But now instead of a couple a week, I’m getting 50 e-mails a day from this thing. That affects me. Now I’m torqued.
Larry: you’re right. Windows presence on the net IS becoming a real nuisance.
Well, fortunately the busy bees at MSFT are actively working on the next version of Windows, and that one will be secure! I’ve heard it may be released as early as 2007 or ’08. And then everyone will update to the new OS and no more viruses! And then they’ll show you what a real OS is good for!
LOL Toll. You are something!
I had the laugh of the day
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />))))))))))
oh wait… by then all desktops will be 64bit. Rats, then they will have to rewrite it again to ship on 2012.
i have a friend with a mac and was just messaged he has this worm and I read on another site that a mac user was infected. Explain this, please.
“Still, even non-Windows users were affected by the worm’s spread, as one TechNewsWorld reader — a Mac user — reported receiving more than 250 Swen e-mails in the last day”
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31632.html
pc clean: simple BS and FUD.
One thing is receiving infected email (OF COURSE, with all PCs infected out there what would you expect???)
Another is being infected. Let me explain to you. Receiving the email is NOT the infection process. The infection is when the worm installs itself into your machine, starts reading your address book, replicates itself and spread.
Worms and virii are not a weird entity. They are little pieces of code. IF you understand I cannot install as is a Windows program on my Mac you should not be so silly to believe ANY other software written for Windows could run as is on a Mac. A virus and a worm is nothing more than that: a piece of software code.
When PC users brag about having more software titles to run on their Pee-Cee they should ALSO understand – not that difficult – that virii ARE software and are part of that larger selection of software that could run on a Pee-Cee
Got it now, FINALLY??????
BTW, since OS X is now a BSD Unix flavor the situtation is reversed. More software can run on a Mac, just NOT WINDOWS VIRII>
Put in anotehr way:
Infected PC are a nuisance because with all the emails they send around the clog and slow down and make server crashed under the heavy load. THEN every computer in the world is AFFECTED even if not INFECTED.
Warn me if stiil you do not GRASP THAT!
One more little thought to weigh in your mind, pc clean:
If you’d destroy all those infected Pee-Cee no one would receive ANY of those emails. Those virii and worm NEED a Wintel platform to breed and Micros**t product as Outlook to thrive.
See? remove the cause of the problem and everyone will benefit from it:
Every f**king user of ANY OS in the world. Windows IS the problem – although Micros**t keep saying it is the dumb users – and they mean YOU.
pc clean,
I want to believe you truly came here in order to see better. So, forgive me in case I sounded too harsh. BUT I hope you will come to realize one important message.
Windows lacks badly of any concept of security. It is a system that cries to be infected. As a matter of fact a PC online simply SHOUTS – in the electronic sense – I AM HERE, I AM HERE, I CHECK NOTHING, I SWALLOW EVERYTHING.
A regular home PC user, that is one with no particular expertise or background in IT, is like a tourist going to one of those sex-vacation in a HIV infected countries, having fun-sex daily in an unprotected way and then saying naively: “WHAT? me infected, but.. but.. everyone I know makes sex”. Sorry pal, ybut ou are a danger for the internet society.
Even in our lab, with all the firewalls, spam filters and the rest we had 86 PC infected by MSBlaster AND I received these very last day 12 emails from the new Windows worm – traced back to PCs of colleagues – . Now imagine, if professionals – we usually hold Ph.D. here – who could and should in principle be skilled enough to avoid infection had their PC infected imagine the poor bastard John Doe out there.
See? IT IS a major problem.
An IT professional here said: “I do not get infected. I do not use Micros**t products but their OS, I do not open attachments, I run a personal firewall on top of the lab’s one, I do not accepts files from anyone even people I know and trust if not after double-checking with them and I never had got a virus”. Sorry, but I pity him and other Windows users who SURELY do not behave like him. Is this the way you use your PC, is this the way you like your computing experience.
IF YES, then bend over pal and let Micros**t drive. You must be linking that.
If not, do yourself a favor: Apple computers are NOT more expensive than similarly configured PCs today. Have been true in the past, you have the luck of having a Mac friend, hopefully with OS X (if with OS 9 do not bother: see I am being honest). Go to an Apple store, give yourself a chance.
Cheers
PC weenies are either puzzled or trying hopelessly to defend Micros**t.
There are some valiant answers to that.
Seahawk, thanks for the smug reply I would expect of a Mac user, and btw, I’m no dummy, I have a degree in English and would like to tell you there is no such word as virii.
Being so scholarly and all, perhaps you’d care to check for yourself, and I, being a kind person, will provide the link.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=virii
“The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the Dictionary search box to the right.
Suggestions for virii:”
Perhaps that will humble you a bit, as you come off as a complete, condescending fool. You use a Mac. Why am I suprised. It goes with the territory.
Learn from this. Don’t go spouting off like you did to someone who asked an innocent question for a friend who is too computer illiterate to find out himself.
I use a PC, yes, and no, I do not meet the profile of the average user, nor do I bite the patch bait. I hate all Micro$oft stands for. I can hear you thinking, Seahawk. My husband provided the 8 computers for this house as he does a lot of programming and animation when he’s home and not at the office performing his consulting job.
SNOBS!!!!!
Psst Seahawk. Read your own words.
Larry: you’re right. Windows presence on the net IS becoming a real nuisance.
I have a site that gets a lot of traffic. Read the stats for yesterday.
“Most popular user operating systems used for access:
Windows NT with 2851 sessions (39.81% of all sessions)
Unknown with 2480 sessions (34.63% of all sessions)
Windows 98 with 1380 sessions (19.27% of all sessions)
Macintosh PPC with 249 sessions (3.48% of all sessions)
Windows 95 with 99 sessions (1.38% of all sessions)
Windows 3.1x with 49 sessions (0.68% of all sessions)
LINUX with 30 sessions (0.42% of all sessions)
BSD UNIX with 11 sessions (0.15% of all sessions)
SUN OS with 11 sessions (0.15% of all sessions)
Macintosh with 2 sessions (0.03% of all sessions)”
Clearly you’re in the minority, but keep up that aura of superiority as I sense you need it. You probably defend your decision to become a Big Mac w/cheese every single day. Oh, your wife bought it as a gift and you didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Sorry, Seahawk, I read you wrong. :p Yes! An emoticon. It’s too hard to be PC all the time and no, that pun hit me as I was typing.
This Mac vs. PC stuff amuses me, though, so keep it coming. I’m in the mood to verbally duke it today. My humor took a little break, but you’ll know when she returns. It’s the ‘bitch’ you’re hearing from now, because I get so sick of hearing the same old yammer from Mac users, I get sick of hearing how Linux is superior. But the real reason she appeared is because of the frat-boy replies to the ‘cool’ side.
This is probably way over your head, so I’ll go away now. Oh yes, I’ll be back.
One last thing. Seeing Windows 3.1 in the stats had me howling.
pc clean: you might have a degree in English but you should get back to school and refresh your latin.
‘virii’ is plural for ‘virus’ and it is the common plural form in Computer Jargon and Hacker/Crackers parlance
pc clean: so you site gives the presence for all the net. Good Lord. How big is you head. You TRULY believe your site statistics gives you the picture of installed base for the various OS. Oh my oh my oh my. And who are *you* calling condescending fool? ROFLMAO
For your information Mac presence on the net is above 10%. Do you TRULY believe that Linux/BSD Unix counts for less than 1%.
Lady, get your facts: Even Micros**t web servers run on Linux/Apache.
So risible!
So, to follow your logic(?): the majority of the population in the US goes to fast food: what is your point? that it forcibly is the best food you can eat?
Coackroaches outnumber dogs by many factors: I suppose you gave one as pet to your children?
BTW, a nuisance is a nuisance because of its very presence – which your point seems to prove. If Windows was the minority, even infected daily as they are they will be well below the threshold to be noticed. Which is MY point.
PS
Not only I use a Mac, at the lab I also have access to SGI workstations, IBM servers, I use Linux Red Hat and in my group there are 3 XPs as well. When our mail servers and spam filters choke because in ONE day they received 234,000 mail crap from infected PCs out there, sorry my lady, your Windows IS a real nuisance and a danger to the internet society.
PPS
Big Mac? What’s that? I eat at “Chez Panisse” “Tour d’Argent” “Ritz” “Chez Maxime” and alike.
Oh, one more thing: on a Mac a browser (say Safari or OmniWeb) could identify itself as whatever system it likes. This is done to be able to read site whose web developers is head-in-the-sand into Windows IE.
Do not believe all your Microsoft IE statistics are ALL from Wintel.
Oh, one more thing again: I can even identify my browser and system as ‘unknown’ which gives you what? 34%.
Lots of Macs in there Lady.
I also want to be kind and give you an URL:
http://www.orthus.com/ttviri.html
The top ten VIRII (!) are all Windows. And please, send Orthus Information Security Solutions your link again claiming ‘virii’ is not a word!!
You are so funny!!
pc clean: Not only are the latin plural “virii” valid and well used in computer science, but also in biological sciences such as molecular genomics and _virology_! As a windows user, you better learn and remember “virii” – you will live with viruses in plural on your platform forever (or at least until microsoft does a real clean rewrite of the entire os)…