Security Incidents mailing list archives

RE: Phatbox: Media Hype? Scare Tactics?


From: "Ken Dunham" <dunhamk () rmci net>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:54:33 -0700

Is this hype or is this really spreading? Smells like hype to me because
SARC reports nothing described as Phatbox and turns up nothing in the
Symantec virus/backdoor database.

*********************

It's not hype.  This is one of the Mydoom/Beagle/Netsky variants (I just
don't recall which variant or which of the three worms it is off the top
of my head).  Since these vx groups "own" thousands of boxes, each time
they seed a new virus, they infect thousands of machines.  Even if it
isn't spreading, it's still in a lot of boxes.

Additionally, before anti-virus detected it or even reported on Phatbot.A it
was out there and had infected some networks.  There is a minimum of at
least 4 Phatbot variants now.  We've been tracking this entire
situation...It's not a matter of how many there are but *which* networks end
up being compromised...and it is growing.

Ken Dunham
Director of Malicious Code
PGP KeyID: 0x6A8AC63F
iDEFENSE Inc. - www.idefense.com
54-68-65-20-70-6F-77-65-72-20-6F-66-20-69-6E-74-65-6C-6C-69-67-65-6E-63-65-2
0-73-74-61-72-74-73-20-68-65-72-65-21


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