Select countryOslo, 3 October 2002
The data security company Norman reported Monday about the fast spreading e-mail worm, Bugbear. So far the e-mail worm has been reported in more than 130 countries, and is still spreading rapidly. Bugbear spreads sensitive information in a more dramatic way than other e-mail worms.
- Bugbear sends already existing e-mail content to a random selection of addresses from the user’s address book. It uses parts of, or the whole body of the text in the e-mail. In so doing, it increases the risk of an outsider reading the sensitive information without needing to open an attachment to get this information presented. We have already received several inquiries from desperate people who have had their correspondence with their doctor, lawyer, psychologist or bank spread out on the Internet, says VP Marketing at Norman, Bjørn A. Windfeldt.
This also means that even if the antivirus software cleans the e-mail, the sensitive information will still be distributed to the receiver’s mailbox when the sensitive information is in the body text and not in the attachment.
“There is nothing new in e-mail worms spreading sensitive information. The earlier variants we have seen e.g. Sircam and Klez, take a file from your computer and send this as an attachment to the e-mail. The antivirus industry has repeatedly warned against opening attachment to e-mails where you don’t know the content and therefore where the sensitive information not been presented in an equally obvious way, says Windfeldt.
Norman request all users to update their antivirus software and scan through their PC`s for malicious code, and asks all users to be aware of the risk of having sensitive information saved in their mailbox and the risk that this information may be distributed if they get infected with a computer virus. Norman Virus Control with definition files from 30. September and later detects the e-mailworm, Bugbear.
For more information, see: www.norman.com
For further information, please contact
Norman ASA, VP Marketing Bjørn A. Windfeldt, tel.+47 67 10 97 76, mob. +47 41 53 97 76