The list of affected sites include major names in the anti-virus and security trade, including Symantec, McAfee, F-Secure, Sophos, Network Associates, and Kaspersky Labs. Microsoft's Office Update and Windows Update, as well as other Microsoft download locations, are also on the list.
That makes it much more dangerous than its predecessor, said Ken Dunham, the malicious code director for security firm iDefense.
"This new variant is worse than Mydoom.a," he said, because the lack of access to security and anti-virus sites will make it impossible for many users, particularly consumers, to obtain updates to protect or clean their systems. "This will result in a longer lifespan for Mydoom.b," he said.
Dunham, along with other security experts, suspect that Mydoom.b is being launched from computers already infected with the original Mydoom.a. "If this is the case," said Dunham, "Mydoom.b will likely become very prevalent in just a few hours."
Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs agreed. "Our analysts believe that Mydoom.b is probably using machines infected by the original Mydoom," said Kaspersky spokesman Denis Zenkin in an e-mailed statement. "The computer community may be facing a much more serious outbreak than the one caused by Mydoom.a yesterday."
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IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
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