IT Masala

The Storm Worm is back. The e-mail virus, which first attacked in January, has returned with a vengeance during the last 24 hours, boosting the amount of virus traffic on the Internet to as much as 60 times the normal amount. The Internet Storm Center reported detecting at least 20,000 infections today.

Detection :  Nine engines caught the virus, some of which are eTrust-Vet, Fortinet, F-Secure, McAfee and Webwasher-Gateway.

Effects of this Storm Virus:

Once installed on a personal computer, the virus takes control of the machine, sending personal information stored on the PC back to the online criminals who created the malicious program. It can also send itself out to the entire address book of the PC's owner, and turn it into a "zombie" machine sending out more spam.

Speciality : Unlike the original Storm malware, which was hidden in an executable file, this one is hidden in the encrypted zip file .So if they can't detect it , how can they stop it ?

Types of Spam Mails Sent : New Storm Worm variants showing up attached to e-mails with subjects such as "Virus Alert!" or "I dream of you".

Inside the e-mail is an image and an encrypted zip file. The image has the password needed to open the zip file.

Spreading : Only possibility of spreading is through peer-to-peer network, as a standalone pc cannot do any damage outside itself ! 

Caution : So don't open any unexpected e-mail attachments. Even if its sent from somebody you know , check before you open the attachments as the virus picks up email ids from the infected pc to send out spam mails.

Solution :  As this virus spreads only when a user opens an attachment , so it depends on the user , so cant patch all users mind , can we ? . So it solely depends on your common sense !