More companies Down Under squirm from worm
According to Australian security vendor Janteknology, there has been such "an incredible increase in attacks, that it is likely a large percentage can be attributed to the Sircam worm," Managing Director Glenn Miller said.
Miller says the number of Australian security attacks reported to US-based security tracking company www.securityfocus.com overnight reached 8,162, "indicating a rise of almost 4,000, while the US and Europe each suffered increases of more than 100,000."
The emailing worm attacks systems with "day, month, year" as their date format. The first line in the text of the email is "Hi, how are you?’, while the last line is ‘See you later, thanks".
"Its payload trigger date is 16 October, when it will start deleting files and directories on C-drives, with those exposed facing a one-in-20 risk of having all their files deleted," Miller said.
"The worm also degrades performance, with companies attacked facing a one-in-33 chance of having all their disk space filled by the addition of random text. The worm can also release confidential information as it has the ability to export random documents from hard drives by appending them to its body."
Miller has urged companies to download the free Sircam Scanner from the company's Web site.