New Worm Steals User Data

A new Internet worm that steals information from users' computers and tries to shut down two Web sites is spreading, antivirus vendors warn.

The worm, dubbed Mimail.C, is a variant of the W32.Mimail worm that surfaced in August. Antivirus software vendors rate the worm a "medium" level threat, indicating that it is infecting computers and spreading. Among the antivirus vendors weighing in on the threat are Symantec, F-Secure, and Network Associates.

All of the primary antivirus vendors say they have updated their software to protect customers against the newly discovered worm.

Mimail.C's Methods

Mimail.C was discovered Friday, the vendors say in bulletins on their Web sites. It arrives as an e-mail nessage with "our private photos" in the subject line and an attached .zip archive file called "photos.zip."

The sender's address is faked to be "james" at the receiver's domain and the body of the message promises revealing photos of a girl at a beach, the antivirus vendors say.

The worm with its attachment was mass-mailed, which most likely started its propagation, according to an alert from Network Associates.

Opening Activates

Infection starts when the recipient unpacks the "PHOTOS.JPG.EXE" file from the attachment and runs it. The worm will harvest e-mail addresses from the user's PC to mail copies itself to additional recipients. It will also send information captured from applications the user has open to certain e-mail addresses programmed into the malicious code, the antivirus companies say.

The worm will also attempt to launch a denial of service attack on Web sites at darkprofits.com and darkprofits.net, the vendors say. Both sites were unreachable Friday afternoon.