[Full-Disclosure] Sobig-F worm "second wave"

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Sobig-F worm has twist in tail - Sophos warns of possible "Trojan horse"
download

Sophos has today warned that the mass-mailing W32/Sobig-F worm, which
has flooded computer users this week, could attempt to download a Trojan
horse between 8pm and 11pm BST today.

At 19:00-22:00 GMT (which is 8-11pm in the UK) on Fridays and Sundays,
 the worm has been programmed to automatically direct infected PCs to
a server controlled by the virus writer from which a malicious program
could be downloaded. At the moment, it is not known what the download
material will do, but possibilities include launching another virus or
spam attack, collecting sensitive information, a denial of service attack,
 or deleting files stored on an infected computer or network.

"The main effect of Sobig-F to date has been to slow down the internet
with the sheer quantity of emails it has generated," said Graham Cluley,
 senior technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus. "At 8pm tonight,
most British companies will have left the office for the bank holiday
weekend, but any infected computers that are left on have the potential
to become zombies, doing whatever the virus writer wants. If the writer
of Sobig succeeds in installing a Trojan on infected PCs, users could
be in for a nasty shock when they return to work next week. The message
is simple: ensure your anti-virus is up-to-date, run your anti-virus
to check for infection, disinfect if necessary and ensure your computer's
firewall is properly configured."

"What the worm downloads will not be known until this evening - it could
display an offensive but largely harmless message or launch a malicious
attack. But the download is timed to coincide with the regular business
afternoon in the United States, so users should be concerned about unauthorised
code running on their computers. On Monday morning businesses in the
Far East and Australia will be beginning their working day when the worm
tries a second time to download unknown code from the net," continued
Cluley.

Sophos advises that the download can be avoided by configuring firewalls
to block outgoing connection attempts to UDP port 8998. In addition,
anti-virus software should be updated, and any infected PCs disinfected.


Sophos has published information about how to disinfect computers and
prevent the Trojan download.
See also:

F-Secure:  http://www.f-secure.com/news/items/news_2003082200.shtml
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