E-mail worm spreading rapidly

By Matthew Fordahl
Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A malicious program attached to seemingly innocuous e-mails was spreading quickly over the Internet yesterday, clogging network traffic and potentially leaving hackers an open door to infected personal computers.

The worm, called "Mydoom" or "Novarg" by anti-virus companies, usually appears to be an e-mail error message. A small file is attached that, when launched on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, can send out 100 infected e-mail messages in 30 seconds to e-mail addresses stored in the computer's address book and other documents.

At Pau Spam, a Honolulu-based company that filters e-mail for other companies, the Mydoom worm was being stopped at a rate of about 100 per minute, said owner Ho'ala Greevy.

"It's going crazy," Greevy said.

Because the worm doesn't destroy data, many users may not even know they're infected, said SuperGeeks owner James Kerr.

"Most users won't see an immediate impact on their machine," Kerr reported.

"It doesn't look like it's damaging data. However, it does have a remote access feature," which could allow others to access an infected computer, he said.

Microsoft offers a patch of its Outlook e-mail software to warn users before they open such attachments or prevent them from opening them altogether. Anti-virus software also stops infection.

The attack was first noticed yesterday afternoon. Within hours, thousands of e-mails were clogging networks, said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of Network Associates' anti-virus emergency response team.

Besides sending out e-mail, the program appears to open up a backdoor so that hackers can take over the computer later.

Symantec, an anti-virus company, said the worm appeared to contain a program that logs keystrokes on infected machines. It could collect user names and passwords of unsuspecting users and distribute them to strangers.

Advertiser staff writer Sean Hao contributed the Hawai'i portions of this report.