Bagle.AZ 24 Hours Later

Waters Apparently Calming

Ever since MessageLabs stopped updating its statistics frequently, it has become harder to judge how fast mass-mailing email-borne viruses spread. However, I am happy to report that 24 hours after it first appeared, it seems that Bagle.AZ is not a significantly high-spreading Medium risk worm.

Although there is currently a consensus over the risk in the lower part of the Medium range, many vendors do not even consider this a Medium risk. The current reports are:

F-Secure: Medium
Network Associates: Medium
Panda Software: Medium
Sophos: Low-Medium
Symantec: Low-Medium
Trend Micro: Low

(Note that Panda uses a slightly different scale than other vendors listed here, so their site lists as “High” what is really “Medium.”)

Also, Symantec uses the name “Beagle“ instead of “Bagle.“

Despite the lower-than-initially-reported risk, it is important to remain vigilant for this version and subsequent variants. This shows that the Bagle family creator is still out there, still making new variants, and most notably still attempting to make those variants widespread.