Fizzer Bubbles Up -- Redmondmag.com

Fizzer Bubbles Up

By Scott Bekker
05/13/2003

A mass-mailing worm known as Fizzer broke out late last week and is getting more attention from a prominent security vendor Monday.

Fizzer sends itself to all contacts in the Windows Address Book, contains a backdoor that uses mIRC to communicate with a remote attacker and contains a keylogger. The worm affects all versions from Windows 95 through Windows XP.

The message has dozens of possible subject lines, several different body texts and randomly generated attachment names.

While security vendor F-Secure gives Fizzer its highest alert status, both Symantec and Trend Micro started it out on a lower rung. Symantec, however, bumped up the severity of the alert Monday.

"Due to the number of submissions received from customers, Symantec Security Response is upgrading this threat from a Category 2 to a Category 3 threat," the company said in a statement.

For comparison, Klez.H, which is still on top of Symantec's threat list despite being released more than a year ago, currently ranks higher as a Level 4 threat on Symantec's threat scale.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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