“Internet security experts found a new version of the Mydoom computer worm, dubbed the Mydoom.B, that evades detection measures for the original worm, Finland’s F-Secure said. ‘The new virus has been modified so that the original Mydoom anti-virus protection does not detect it,’ Mikko Hyppoenen, director of computer security firm F-Secure’s anti-virus division, told AFP. ‘It is in the wild, and computers are getting infected, but so far in less numbers than by the original Mydoom virus,’ he added,” AFP reports.
“The Mydoom.B worm is designed to attack [url=http://www.microsoft.com]http://www.microsoft.com,[/url] Microsoft Corp’s main website, as well as the website of US-based software vendor SCO, which is the sole target of the original Mydoom worm. In addition, it has a new feature, rendering it impossible for infected computers to access the websites of several anti-virus software firms. ‘This is a nightmare come true for us …. infected users won’t get updates from anybody,’ Ero Carrera, a virus cracker with F-Secure, said after neutralizing the latest variant,” AFP reports.
Macintosh computers cannot be infected with either the original Mydoom or Mydoom.B virus.
Full article here.
One of our secretaries with her wintel abomination opened that attachment. She has my email in her freaking outlook crapware. Now I got the bouncebacks from all the people I supposedly sent mails to. No problemo. I just trained the spamfilter of Mail on the first crop of virus mails and bouncebacks, now I’m having peace.
Still, it’s a nuisance. It took me almost five minutes.
On another note, a worm like this could never spread on Mac platforms under OS X. Why? Even if a single moronic user would type in his admin password to allow the installation of such a virus, it would require an uninterupted chain of morons to spread it. That’s the beauty of writing a Worm for Win: morons abound there! Clueless people who are kept in ignorance by the IT departments who try to protect their turf and jobs.
ABQ Peter,
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No need to use scientific notations. 100% of Windows users is just about right.
Now don’t get so overconfident about the invunerability of the Mac plattform. How many among you have a decent firewall, virus protection, etc.? The day will come and the first large scale attack on the Mac will be launched. I think I’m prepared. Are you..?
Yes, please don’t gloat, but this truly wouldn’t be a Mac OS X problem. Most users should not be logged onto admin level accounts. Whereas on Windows, all users, even limited users, who “execute” an attachment can give it “access” to the rest of the system. (Note on many windows systems these attachments are automatically launched, and this is simply not possible, ever, on a Mac.)
While on Mac OS X, user data would always be at risk for anyone launching an attachment (ie a malicious shell script that does a rm -rf ), the rest of the system, and other User accounts, would be safe. Mac OS X even allows more control, such that even these attachments could never be executed by the user, and only by an admin.
Simple protections: routers, firewalls, don’t execute unknown code, and even on single user systems it is recommended that you have two accounts: One for admin level access (in fact this is usually the original “owners” account); and a second with standard privileges, which is the one you use for day to day activities.
Regarding the latest round of mydoom.b: it is interesting to see who’s email lists I am on. So far here all virii infected emails, “bounced” or otherwise, have been successfully detected and/or deleted, and there have been many, many over the last two days.
Zac
Money spent on virus programs, EVER: 0
(They come with the box or mobo)
Time spent using virus program: 0
(They do it automatically ya know)
Viruses found: 0
(When in doubt, when all else fails, don’t click the damn attachment)
Files downloaded from Kazaa, etc.: tens of thousands
(including, at this moment, 50 downloads of movies)
Knowing that most of the blather here is reverse FUD: PRICELESS
Hey Joe,
haven’t heard from you in a while. ‘Ssup? Your system been down?
BTW: “Files downloaded from Kazaa, etc.: tens of thousands
(including, at this moment, 50 downloads of movies)”
So what, that just says you’re cheap! It kinda figures.
Hi Joe, glad to see you are up and running again. Mind if I give the RIAA your address? I am sure they would be interested in your “tens of thousands” of Kazaa downloads.
And for every one Joe ” I’ve NEVER had a virus” McConnel, there are hundreds of PC users that dump tons of money on virus software (usually AFTER they get nailed by a virus).
I know this first hand since I worked at a PC/Mac repair shop. I got smart… now I work at a Mac ONLY sales/repair store.
Virus I’ve seen on PCs: Thousands
Watching customers complain about viruses: hundreds of times
Knowing that there ARE NO VIRUSES for Mac OS X: Priceless.
For smart people there is Macintosh… for the rest, there is Windows and viruses.
The reason Mac users are so smug is, well, because we can be. It has been 3 years that Mac OS X has been out, not 1 virus has come to light. There are millions of OS X users, so it is not a small target. Mac users are smug and provoking and attack, but yet, no attack comes…. why?
The Mac IS MORE SECURE then Windows. PERIOD.
So, Joe, go back to Kazaa, download some more illegal music and movies, pirate some more antivirus software since you state you do not pay for it.
Could we change the name to something else? MyDoom? It is not my doom or my macs doom.. It could be yourDoom ro YourWindowsDoom.. or DieSCODie??
Right??
Ironic
Concerning your comment:
“How many among you have a decent firewall, virus protection, etc.?”. From what I’ve seen, virus protection software is generally retroactive. It’s not going to help you when some new virus comes out. The fix can’t be written until some poor souls (including those with virus protection software) get infected.
“Files downloaded from Kazaa, etc.: tens of thousands
(including, at this moment, 50 downloads of movies)”
Is this something to be proud of? Now that I know what kind of person McConnell is, it is easier to ignore him.
MyDoom is the closest my Mac and I have ever come to any virus out there. I received an email with one of these notorious attachments and not thinking, I clicked and attempted to see what it was. My Mac wouldn’t open it for some reason, but ever since that first email there has been a deluge of emails all carrying the same doom attachment. There are even numerous emails from my own domain with users that do not exist. It is also sending virus laden emails to others in my name! Ugh. Fortunately, I have enough layers of spam filtering that I never really look at any of these messages unless my morbid curiousity gets the better of me. My question is, how long will all this email go on? Is there a way to get off the merry go round or must we simply endure the onslaught of virus emails ?
Finally, I’ve found someone who is experiencing the same e-mail crap. Thanks May May. My curiosity got the better of me, thinking I was immune, I opened the attachment thinking it can’t infect me, so I could see the file and perhaps see the code. Apparently it did infect me. It’s great that it’s not affecting the functionality of OS X but the MyDoom virus is still using the Mail program to do its evil deed. That says to me that Mac OS X is not immune. I just got a returned e-mail telling me that Allstream.com detected the MyDoom virus in an attachment that I sent to attcanada.com (I didn’t personally but it returned my e-mail address)
Everybody is saying that Mac users don’t have to worry because it doesn’t affect us. It does affect us if we are perpetuating the virus.
Does anybody know a recourse to clean it off my drives short of reformatting them and starting from scratch and losing all my data in the process? This is more serious than people are letting on in the Mac community.