MyDoom Virus Resurfaces

Antivirus software maker McAfee upgraded a newly discovered variant of the MyDoom virus, W32/MyDoom.bb@MM, to a medium risk worm based on reports gathered from scans of its customers' computers. The variant attempts to harvest e-mail addresses from search engines including Google.

MyDoom's initial version is probably the most remembered of the variants. It tore through the Internet in January 2004. At one point, the virus was showing up in 1 out of every 12 e-mails scanned, prompting Sophos' Graham Cluley to call it the "of the worst viruses ever."

The new variant is not much different from its predecessors, and downloads and executes a trojan horse. Users should be wary of e-mail addresses beginning with mailer_daemon, noreply, and postmaster with their host as the suffix.

According to McAfee, most of the initial infections are occurring in the United States, however it has received some scattered reports of the worm surfacing in Australia and the United Kingdom.

More information on MyDoom and a cure for the worm can be found on McAfee's Web site.