Tech Shout!

Here’s more about how to protect your systems from falling prey to ‘Black Worm’. Security advisor CA has released a patch to detect and cure it. CA said that though potentially quite damaging to a system, large-scale infection of the worm is not expected and the current over-reaction by many members of the anti-virus community is uncalled-for.

The worm has gained the attention of the anti-virus community because of its skill to trick Windows through phony digital signatures and seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of destruction and not for any profitable gain.

The virus has also caught attention in both the general and technology press aswell due to a unique Web site that supposedly shows a running counter of infected computers, as well as its reliance on sexually suggestive emails, which spread the virus.

This virus is also known as W32.Blackmal.E@mm (Symantec), Win32.Blackmal.F, Win32/Blackmal.F!Worm, Win32/Cabinet!Worm, CME-24, WORM_GREW.A (Trend), W32/Mywife.d@MM (McAfee), W32/Nyxem.E (F-Secure), W32/Nyxem-D (Sophos), W32/Tearec.A.worm (Panda), Email-worm.Win32.Nyxem.e (Kaspersky).

CA has published a signature to detect and cure via the following signature updates here.

- eTrust Antivirus 6x/v7* (InoculateIT Engine)- 23.71.52
- eTrust Antivirus 6x/v7* (Vet Engine) - 11.x/9615
- eTrust Antivirus 6x/v7* (Vet Engine) - 12.4x/2046
- eTrust EZ Antivirus 6.2x - 6.2x/9615
- eTrust EZ Antivirus 6.3x - 6.3x/9615
- eTrust EZ Antivirus 6.4x - 6.4x/9615
- eTrust EZ Antivirus 7.x - 7.x/9615
- Vet Anti-Virus 10.6x - 10.6x/9615