More than a month after its initial discovery, the Klez worm continues to circulate the Internet in enormous volumes, and in most cases has increased the number of viruses trapped by Internet service providers by more than 100 times their normal weekly counts.
Based on the iFRAME vulnerability in Internet Explorer, the Klez worm transmits itself using one of many random subject lines. Once installed, the worm spreads within local networks by copying itself to shared computer drives.
Graeme Slogrove, director of new product research at service provider Netactive, says the company has seen significant increases in the average number of viruses on its network since the release of the Klez worm. According to Slogrove, Netactive`s na.co.za domain usually traps an average of around five viruses a day and the figures for early April indicate a daily total of between one and seven generic viruses a day. However, from mid-April, the number of viruses increased significantly, jumping to 606 on 17 April, the first day of the Klez worm, 2 152 the following day and 3 504 on the third day, and peaking on 24 April at 5 366.
M-Web Connect project manager Pierre de Brandt paints a similar picture and says that "since the release of Klez, the number of viruses stopped by M-Web have jumped quite considerably". M-Web typically processes around 9 million e-mails a week, and on average picks up between 17 000 and 18 000 viruses. That number jumped to a peak of 215 000 in the week following the release of the Klez worm.
De Brandt says the number of viruses currently trapped is down to around 158 000 a week, and it "appears to be starting to taper off". However, he doesn`t expect the levels to return to their original number for at least another month. "Currently, Klez accounts for around 98% of all viruses picked up on our network."
However, De Brandt says the virus has not created a significant slowdown on the network because it is only a small percentage of the overall e-mails processed.
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