Panda Software virus alert-- new Mimail worm variants appearing

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

Posted in GD as a public service.

The poster is not an employee of, or in any way associated with Panda Software.
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Panda Software warns users about the wave of new variants of the Mimail worm

Virus Alerts, by Panda Software (http://www.pandasoftware.com)

Madrid, November 3, 2003 - PandaLabs has detected three new variants, E, F and G, of the Mimail worm which, according to data collected by Panda Software's international tech support network, have already started causing incidents.

The new variants of Mimail are very similar to their predecessors and are designed to mass mail themselves using their own SMTP engine. They also try to carry out denial of service (DoS) attacks on several websites. When these worms are run on a computer, they go memory resident.

All of these variants reach computers in e-mail messages that use so-called social engineering techniques to trick users into running the attached file, which actually contains the worm. The characteristics of the messages carrying the different variants of Mimail are available in Panda Software's Virus Encyclopedia, at: http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/.

With the appearance of these three new variants of Mimail, in addition to variants C and D that Panda Software warned users about just a few days ago, it seems that the author or authors of these viruses want to spread as many worms as possible in order to increase the probability of a computer being hit by a variant of Mimail.

Due to the high possibility of being infected by one of these variants, Panda Software advises users to treat all e-mails received with caution, and to update their antivirus solutions if they haven't already done so.

The company has already made the updates to its products available to users to ensure their solutions can detect and eliminate the C, D, E, F and G variants of Mimail. Similarly, users can also detect and disinfect this and other malicious code using the free, online antivirus, Panda ActiveScan, which is available on the company's website at http://www.pandasoftware.com

Detailed technical information on Mimail.C, Mimail.D, Mimail.E, Mimail.F and Mimail.G is available from Panda Software's Virus Encyclopedia, at: http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/.

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[Spazito]

1. Thanks for the heads up!

*

[Noordam]

2. Just do not try to install the any software by Panda.

:evilgrin: it does not work and hangs machines.

[Nomad559]

3. Panda sucks

I've tried just about every virus software available, and panda really slows down my system, Norton Is not much better. PC-cillin Is the only virus software that I found that causes no problems on my system.

My System ...
Win XP Pro - P4 2.53 GHZ with 533MHz system bus - 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 Non-ECC DDR - Western Digital Caviar 120GB 7200 8MB Buffer ATA/100 (Master) - Western Digital Caviar 120GB 7200 8MB Buffer ATA/100 (Slave) - Logitech Cordless Mx Duo - Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 - Plextor 8X DVD-RW +RW DVD Recorder - Lite On 52x32x52 CD-R & CD-RW Burner - 32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra - Winfast Deluxe TV2000XP TV/FM Multimedia Card - Santa Cruz DSP-powered, 6-speaker sound card - 20' Hitachi Monitor 800X600 @ 120hz - Surfboard 4200 Cable Modem - NetGear 4-port Router

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

6. I don't use their software

I just subscribe to their virus alert email list. It's important for me to keep up on all the new threats as I try to disinfect computers for people, and it seems to be appreciated when I repost the articles here.

[pansypoo53219]

4. virus?

gee, my mac doesn't get sick much.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Don't know anything about Panda...

but everyone should some sort of AV running. Myself, I'm happy with AVG-- it works and doesn't hog my machine.

And, Macs and Linux boxes aren't immune, just not targeted yet. The first major worm out there years ago was a Unix worm, and expect to see more here and there.