A new worm contains a keystroke-logging function that lets its
author steal information such as passwords and credit card numbers.
According to a McAffee virus advisory, the recently discovered
‘Bugbear’ worm has been found in numerous countries, including the
UK, US and India.
Bugbear is “a destructive mass-mailing worm” that spreads via
shared networks and by e-mailing itself to those in a victim's
local address book. Once Bugbear infects a system, it will attempt
to terminate the process of the system's security programs.
It then copies itself into the Window Directory System as a
random executable file and monitors every keystroke, encrypting and
storing the captured information. The stolen data can then be
e-mailed to the virus writer or accessed by anyone using the
infected machine.
Users of Internet Explorer versions 5.5 (the most prevalent
version of Microsoft’s browser) and 5.01 are at risk.
