Five new variants of a mass-mailing worm are infecting computers around the globe and launching denial-of-service attacks — some against well-known anti-spam Web sites. The Mimail worm, an ordinary mass-mailing worm that first appeared this past August, has spawned four new variants that began invading the wild last Friday. The original Mimail worm did nothing […]
Five new variants of a mass-mailing worm are infecting computers around the globe and
launching denial-of-service attacks — some against well-known anti-spam Web sites.
The Mimail worm, an ordinary mass-mailing worm that first appeared this past August, has
spawned four new variants that began invading the wild last Friday. The original Mimail worm
did nothing more than cull email addresses and propagate itself. The new variants are far
more aggressive, launching DoS attacks against several anti-spam Web sites and online
retailers, including one gaming retailer.
As of Monday morning, some sites were being slowed down, while others were not able to be accessed.
”Everyone should be on guard against a possible surge in MiMail activity as
the business week resumes,” says Ken Dunham, director of malicious code at iDefense, Inc.,
a security intelligence firm based in Reston, Va. ”New variants may continue to emerge in
the wild and thousands of MiMail e-mails are now waiting to be opened by unsuspecting
users as the business week resumes.”
Chris Belthoff, a senior security analyst at Lynnfield, Mass.-based anti-virus company,
Sophos, Inc., notes that the worms contain a Zip file, which contains an executable. The
file will harvest email addresses from the computer’s hard drive, propagate itself and then
launch the DoS attacks. The subject line may read, ‘Don’t be late’, and the text will refer
to a planned meeting and a file that the email recipient supposedly requested. Other
variants refer to pictures from a trip to the beach.
Anti-virus analysts say the worms are targeting sites, such as www.spamhaus.org,
www.spews.org, mysupersales.com, spamcop.net, and darkprofits.com.
”These sites are probably getting hit with a lot of traffic,” says Belthoff. ”The
question is why are they targeting these sites? Are they spammers trying to send a message?
Are they just virus writers trying to see if some new technique will work?”
Belthoff adds that while the worms aren’t specifically damaging the computers they’re
infecting, the worms are causing them to slow down because of the amount of email traffic
they’re generating.
”If you’ve got a large network that’s getting infected, then your network will slow down
greatly,” he adds. ”Do the people running these anti-spam sites find them destructive?
Absolutely. If a big corporate network is being slowed down, is that destructive? You bet.”
It’s destructive to business.
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Driving Greater Equality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
December 16, 2020
AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
December 11, 2020
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2021
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Sharon Gaudin is a veteran technology journalist who has worked for the likes of Computerworld, InformationWeek, and Datamation. She has covered everything from the cloud, security, and social networking to software development, robotics, artificial intelligence, and hardware.
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.
