A new version of the Sobig.F e-mail virus that has plagued computers worldwide could arrive any day, even before the latest variant is timed to expire on Sept. 10, security experts said on Monday.
"Another virus could be released any time," said Steve Trilling, research director with the Security Response Team at Symantec Corp, a US-based security company. "We can never be complacent when one threat seems to die down."
Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at Finland-
based F-Secure Corp, said one of the five prior versions of Sobig surfaced before the previous version expired.
Sobig.E began circulating June 25, one week before Sobig.D was set to expire, he said.
The first version of Sobig arrived in January and had no expiration date. It was followed about four months later by Sobig.B. More sophisticated versions followed one week to three weeks after each preceding version, according to Hypponen.
The latest version, Sobig.F, first emerged a week ago and spread to hundreds of thousands of Windows-based computers, Hypponen said. Some 200 million e-mails have been sent over the Internet by infected computers, he estimated.
Sobig.F spreads when unsuspecting computer users open file attachments in e-mails with headings like "Thank You!," and "Re: Details." Once the file is opened, Sobig.F resends itself to e-mail addresses from the infected computer, using random names as the sender.
Sobig.F was programmed to send infected e-mails to one of 20 master computers to receive more instructions on Friday and Sunday, but both attacks failed when the 20 computers were taken off line by computer security specialists.
Infections have declined since last week, falling to a little under 100,000 affected computers by Monday, according to Tokyo-based anti-virus software maker Trend Micro Inc.
Some analysts said the virus appears to have been created by a sort of evil mastermind who is playing a game of cat-and-mouse with law enforcement and computer security experts.
"He's kind of playing with everyone, he knows how to get around the antivirus products," said Bruce Hughes, a malicious code expert at the security firm TruSecure.
"We're kind of puppets, he has all the tools we have. He's not just a virus writer, he's more than that ... we know he was using stolen credit cards to post messages. He not only wants to spread a virus, he wants to install a back door" that can allow infected computers to be hijacked, Hughes said.
Steven Sundermeier at another security firm, Central Command, said he expects a new version of the virus that could be more malicious.
"A potential risk is that the massive army created by Worm/Sobig.F could be used to launch an all out attack on large Internet infrastructures," Sundermeier said in a statement.
According to Central Command, the virus installs a program that can retrieve further instructions that may include the downloading and execution of a backdoor hacker program.
The virus creator "may draw on [infected computers] to be part of a cyber army focusing a digital assault against major online services," Central Command said.
Sunner said the SoBig virus appears to be different from most other worms because of the technical sophistication of its creator and its use of spam e-mail.
"It looks very much like it is used to create launchpads to send spam, so there may be a commercial motivation," Sunner said.
The Sobig.F virus, a "worm" virus so-called because of its ability to infect computer operating systems without human intervention, multiplies by using e-mail addresses it finds in computers it infects. Experts say it is the fastest propagation system seen so far.
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