Would you like a cherry Bagle with your zombie PC? • The Register

Skip to content

Whitepapers

Would you like a cherry Bagle with your zombie PC?

More viral shenanigans

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Anti-Virus, 26th April 2004 20:03 GMT

Free whitepaper – Avoiding 7 common mistakes of IT security compliance

An unknown group of VXers has released a new version of the Bagle worm.

Bagle-Y (AKA Cherry Bagle) spreads by either email or network shares. It opens back doors on infected PCs and turns them into zombie clients in DDoS or spam networks. The worm also tries to terminate various security and anti-virus applications, as well as processes associated with the NetSky worm. Most AV vendors rate Bagle-Y, which was first spotted today, as medium-risk.

Finnish AV vendor F-Secure reports that the executable file icon in infected emails "looks like cherries on a stalk". The worm can attach itself as an executable file with COM, EXE, SCR and CPL extension, as a password-protected ZIP archive and VBS or HTA files. The number of spreading mechanisms distinguishes Bagle-Y from its numerous sibblings.

The worm can attach an image of a girl to its message so as to appear more legitimate. There are images of three girls inside the worm's body, F-Secure reports.

As usual, users are advised to minimise risk of infection by not clicking on unknown email attachments. Updating AV signature files is another sensible precaution. Mac and Linux users are - as usual - immune. ®

Related stories

Netsky tops virus charts by a country mile
Bagle-U plays MS Hearts
Latest Bagle worms spread on auto-pilot
Virus writers in malicious code hide-and-seek
War of the worms turns into war of words

Free whitepaper – Certify your software integrity with Thawte code signing certificates

Whitepapers

The best practices guide for application security

Download to learn about the mandate, the business case, and the executive action plan to jump start an application security program.

Reducing messaging and web security costs with managed services

In this white paper, learn how security costs can be reduced by utilizing managed security services.

Avoiding 7 common mistakes of IT security compliance

This guide covers seven typical IT security compliance errors and outlines the best practices you can immediately apply to your environment to help your company achieve compliance.

Certify your software integrity with Thawte code signing certificates

This guide will show you how Code Signing Certificates are used to secure code that can be downloaded from the Internet. You will also learn how these certificates operate with different software platforms.

The future of SaaS and IT infrastructure management

This report describes the results of a research project designed to explore the current and planned use of IT Infrastructure Management Solutions in North American companies

Search more Resources

Most read

Webcast: Jumpstart your Application Security initiatives

Don’t Miss

Feds: Hospital hacker's 'massive' DDoS averted

Arrest foils 'Devil's Day' scheme

Buggy 'smart meters' open door to power-grid botnet

Grid-burrowing worm only the beginning

Microsoft knew of nasty IE bug a year before attacks

Security delayed or security denied?

BlockMaster SafeStick hardware-encrypted USB drive

Review Tough enough?