From a country considered too much of a hotbed of malware writing and spam activity, a top Internet security company says they keep getting confirmation of more interaction between different malware writing and spam purveying groups that suggest more new viruses could be hitting cyberspace at any time.
“Computer-virus authors are joining hands in order to make their attacks more effective,” said Kaspersky Laboratories March 9, “setting up working groups, exchanging information, as well as different virus-attack schemes and technologies.”
Kaspersky said the writers of Bagle, Zafi, Netsky and other computer worms “are cooperating rather closely,” using information “obtained by the creator of Bagle” to mail their viruses.
The company singled out SpamTool.Win32.Small.b, a bug spotted in mid-February and used to harvest personal computer e-mail addresses, which became part of a new Bagle variant’s payload when that variant hit the Net March 1.
“About fifty such programs were mailed in just two days,” said Kaspersky in a formal announcement. “All viruses are mailed at preset intervals; this seems to be an automatic or semi-automatic process.”
The company said the Net being riddled with electronic crime and advancing “criminal technologies” posed the real threat of imminent “automatic and multi-stage virus attacks…being registered, taking place at preset intervals.
