Internet Worm Poses As Gates MessageInternet Worm Poses As Gates Message

A new worm has been spreading rapidly across the Internet, sometimes pretending to be an E-mail from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, antivirus vendors said Monday.

The worm, a variant of the Sobig worm called Sobig-C, was discovered Saturday and spreads via E-mail and network shares, according to Network Associates Inc. It contains its own SMTP engine for creating outgoing messages and E-mails itself to addresses on the victim's system.

Sobig-C arrives as an E-mail that poses as a message from [email protected] or from addresses it finds on the victim's hard drives, according to Sophos. The infected E-mail may have subject lines such as "Re: Movie" or "Re: Approved" and a variety of attachments such as screensavers (.scr).

Network Associates upgraded Sobig-C's threat to medium from low on Sunday. Symantec Corp. gave the worm a risk rating of 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most serious.

This article appears courtesy of CRN, the newspaper for builders of technology solutions.