Green Apple has received notices of mutations on several mass-mailing worms: Beagle and Netsky.

All these worms tend to spread through email, LAN shared drives, and also peer-to-peer networks, e.g. Kazaa. Their latest respective mutations are: Beagle.U, Netsky.U.

Beagle and Netsky are mass-mailing worms which have their own SMTP engine to send out mails found in the victims' address books and locally cached Internet files. If infected, Beagle will install a backdoor in the machine that will allow attackers to have full access to the victim's computer.

A recent trick of the Netsky worm is that it claims that the message has been previously scanned for viruses and it appears to be safe. This is misleading and many have fallen prey to that.

In response to these worms outbreaks, Green Apple has blocked emails with the worm signature at the mail servers.

If you believe your computer is infected and could use help, please do not hesitate to give us a call. As always, Green Apple users are welcome to bring in their machines for virus scans and virus removals.

Related Links

For more information on Beagle, please visit
   http://www.greenapple.com/support/security/pc-sentry/beagle.htm

For more information on NetSky, please visit
    http://www.greenapple.com/support/security/pc-sentry/netsky.htm

For more information on viruses in general and prevention techniques, please see
    http://www.greenapple.com/support/library/virus-faq.htm