In late January, an email worm called Nyxem.E started spreading
in computers around the globe but its main payload is yet to drop.
Nyxem is also known as Blackworm, Kama Sutra or Mywife. The Common
Malware Enumeration (CME) reference for it is CME-24. For those
computers infected by Nyxem.E, next Friday and every third day of
the month will see the worm replacing the content of a broad range
of user's files with a text string "DATA Error [47 0F 94 93 F4
K5]". Among these files are: DOC, XLS, MDB, MDE, PPT, PPS, ZIP,
RAR, PDF, PSD and DMP. The destructive deadline of the Nyxem.E worm
is, however, based on the clock of the infected machine meaning
that the worm has already claimed its first victims.
Speaking about the Nyxem worm and the initiative to combat it,
Chief Research Officer, Mikko Hypponen said: “There are as many as
300,000 computers that are infected – largely in Turkey, Peru and
India but also in other countries around the world. They will feel
the full force of Nyxem in near time if they don’t take action.”&
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Hypponen continued that Nyxem’s capacity to seed destruction in
computers without any clear motive or commercial gain was unusual
in modern malware but demonstrated that black hats still displayed
a wanton desire to cause havoc as they did in earlier years.
F-Secure has shipped a free tool to disinfect machines hit by
Nyxem. It is available from
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/nyxem_e.shtml
About F-Secure Corporation
F-Secure Corporation is
the fastest growing publicly listed company globally in the antivirus and
intrusion prevention industry with more than 50% revenue growth of antivirus
revenues in 2004. F-Secure services and software protect individuals and
businesses against computer viruses and other threats coming through the
Internet or mobile networks. Our award-winning solutions include antivirus and
desktop firewall with intrusion prevention, antispam and antispyware solutions.
Our key strength is our proven speed of response to new threats. For businesses
our solutions feature a centrally managed and well integrated suite of solutions
for workstations and servers alike. Focused partners offer security as a service
for those companies that do not wish to build security expertise in-house.
Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been listed on the Helsinki Exchanges since 1999.
We have our headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, and offices in France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom and USA. F-Secure is
supported by a global ecosystem of service partners, value added resellers and
distributors in over 50 countries. F-Secure protection is also available through
mobile handset manufacturers such as Nokia and as a service through major
Internet Service Providers, such as Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Charter
Communications. The latest real-time virus threat scenario news are available at
the F-Secure Antivirus Research Team weblog at http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/
For further information, please contact:
F-Secure Corporation
Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer
PL 24
FIN-00181 Helsinki
GSM +358 400 648 180
