More aggressive virus spreads More aggressive virus spreads Bugbear virus returns in variant Friday, June 6, 2003 Posted: 6:30 AM EDT (1030 GMT) NEW YORK (AP) -- A new computer virus that offers hackers full control of infected PCs, giving them access to critical information such as passwords and credit-card numbers, was spreading on the Internet. The virus, dubbed "BugBear.B" by virus experts, follows two other quickly spreading e-mail viruses seen in recent weeks -- "Sobig.B" and "Sobig.C" -- but far exceeds them in its ability to do harm and in the aggressiveness of its spread. E-mail filtering services company MessageLabs Inc. had blocked 37,400 copies of BugBear.B from 125 countries by midday Thursday, after barely registering a blip on Wednesday, when the first copies were seen. Other reports of trouble Network Associates Inc. said it had received 100 infection reports from corporate and consumer customers as of Thursday morning. Its rival, Symantec Corp., said it received 180 infection reports from consumers and 51 from corporate customers. All it takes is one e-mailed copy of the virus entering a corporate network for havoc to ensue. Once inside, BugBear.B will spread throughout a network. BugBear.B, which is a variant of the "BugBear" virus that struck in late September 2002, installs a hidden file that can allow hackers to access infected machines, where they could delete files or run programs of their choosing. Because the virus installs a keylogger program that collects a user's keystrokes, including passwords and credit-card numbers entered into Web sites, hackers could use their access to the PC to acquire such sensitive personal information. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/05/virus.computer.ap/index.html
