Zotob turns to email attack.SophosLabs are warning computer users that hackers have released more worms Worms (vôrms), city (1994 pop. 79,155), Rhineland-Palatinate, SW Germany, on the Rhine River. It is an industrial city and a leading wine trade center. onto the internet that exploit the recently discovered security vulnerability in Microsofts software. The Zotob-C and Tilebot-F worms are following in the wake of the Zotob-A and Zotob-B worms that wm let loose on the internet recently All of these worms take advantage of the Microsoft (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, www.microsoft.com) The most successful and influential software company. Microsoft's software and Intel's hardware pioneered the PC and revolutionized the computer industry. security MS05-039 Plug and Play vulnerability which the company announced recently. Sophos warns that there is a danger many computer users may not have had the time to patch against the serious security hole. The new version of Zotob goes one step further than its predecessors, by trying to spread via email rather than just networked computers. When spreading in this way, the Zotob-C worm worm, common name for various unrelated invertebrate animals with soft, often long and slender bodies. Members of the phylum Platyhelminthes, or the flatworms, are the most primitive; they are generally small and flat-bodied and include the free-living planarians (of can use a number of disguises, such as pretending to be a webcam photograph. The Tilebot-F spyware Software that sends information about your Web surfing habits to its Web site. Often quickly installed in your computer in combination with a free download you selected from the Web, spyware transmits information in the background as you move around the Web. worm can steal user account information from infected in·fect tr.v. in·fect·ed, in·fect·ing, in·fects 1. To contaminate with a pathogenic microorganism or agent. 2. To communicate a pathogen or disease to. 3. To invade and produce infection in. computers and launch distributed denial-of service attacks against websites. "Because Zotob-C can also spread via email it has the potential to affect more people than the previous incarnations of this worm. The good news is that at the moment it does not appear to be spreading widely. 'However, the Tilebot-F worm has been seen spreading in-the-wild, so customers must check that they have the right defences in place or they risk having cntical information stolen. This is an important wake-up call for all computer users to ensure they have proper firewalls, the latest security patches A fix to a program that eliminates a vulnerability exploited by malicious hackers. See vulnerability and patch. , and automatically updated anti- virus software in place. www.sophoscom. |
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