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Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)

Security Best Practices, Breaking News, & Updates

MyDoom AG/AH might be a brand new virus family

An interesting analysis on MyDoom AG/AH from F-Secure's weblog:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/

Turns out these new Mydoom.AG and Mydoom.AH variants might not be Mydooms at all. Our comparison tools show only around 49% correlation between these and the last Mydooms. So that would explain why the technique is so different.

These viruses are also one of the fastest ever to take advantage of a new security vulnerability. The exploit was only posted publicly on Friday, and the viruses were out by Tuesday.

So the virus spreads in four steps:

1 Infected machine ("predator") sends out tons of emails with a link
2 Recipient on target machine ("prey") follows the link back to a website on the Infected machine
3 Exploit on the web page downloads and runs the virus, turning the prey to another predator
4 Repeat

STEPS 1-4 ILLUSTRATED
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/agillustration.jpg