Anti-virus companies have identified a new computer virus that could be characterised as a remote-controlled time bomb.
Information security company, Kaspersky Labs says the Autorooter Internet worm has been sent as spam to many e-mail recipients, but is not widely spread yet because the self-replication component of the worm has not been activated. The company believes Autorooter`s author may still activate the self-replication function of the worm.
Kaspersky Labs says Autorooter is part Internet worm and part backdoor Trojan. The packet consists of the worm carrier, a module for file exchange by FTP and the module for attacking through a breach in Windows NT, 2000 and XP that was discovered two weeks ago.
Kaspersky Labs head of anti-virus research Eugene Kaspersky says the company believes the current version of Autorooter is only an experimental one. He says a more viable version is likely to appear and cause serious damage to the Internet. Kaspersky says it is possible that Autorooter`s author wants to create a network of infected computers to prepare a global virus epidemic or perform a global hacker attack.
Kaspersky Labs anti-virus experts strongly recommend that all users download the appropriate Microsoft patch and block TCP ports 135, 139 and 445 using their firewalls.
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