Toadie virus poses serious threat
The Austrian headquarters of an international company was brought to its knees over the weekend by a new and potentially lethal virus, according to anti-virus company Sophos.
Sophos revealed the existence of Toadie.exe today, but was unwilling to disclose the name of the unfortunate company because it is a customer.
Graham Cluley, senior technical consultant with Sophos Anti-Virus, warns the attack should be taken seriously. "The fact that it's being actively distributed in the same way to Melissa, is very worrying," he says.
Toadie.exe is written in high level language, ASIC, and attaches itself to email messages waiting to be sent.
Toadie's creator, "Raid", is actively distributing the virus in the guise of a program for cloning cell-phones as well as a program designed to generate adult site passwords, says Sophos.
Despite Sophos' concern, the general manager of Datafellows anti-virus believes there is little cause for immediate alarm. "We've known about this virus since last August 19, and do not think it is particularly dangerous. It is not very discrete as it slows down performance considerably. As long as someone has automatically updating anti-virus software they will be okay."
A cure for Toadie.exe is available here