“A new worm dubbed ‘Doomjuice’ targeting Microsoft Corp.’s Web site emerged on the Internet on Monday, which security experts said slowed parts of the software maker’s home page,” Reuters reports. “Doomjuice, which some are describing as a variant of the MyDoom worm, spreads via e-mail systems already infected with the first version, which became the fastest-spreading virus ever when it was unleashed on the Internet at the end of January.”
“‘It’s only looking for machines that are compromised by MyDoom A or B,’ said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the anti-virus emergency response team at Network Associates Inc. He said it was not spreading as rapidly as the initial MyDoom worms. Because Doomjuice spreads directly between infected computers, rather than via e-mail, experts said that it would not be accurate to call it a variant of MyDoom, which accounted for as many as one in five e-mails at its peak in late January.”
“Doomjuice, which experts said was most likely created by the same author as MyDoom, is designed to flood Microsoft’s web site for request for data in an effort to bring it down, an attack known as a distributed denial of service. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said that ‘all Microsoft.com web properties are stable and available to customers.’ Security experts noted, however, that Microsoft’s Web site was slower and was intermittently unavailable over the weekend,” Reuters reports.
Macintosh computers are unaffected by this worm beyond the email and Internet slowdowns these Windows worms cause for every computer user.
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