Every week new viruses, worms and vulnerabilities are discovered worldwide. Some prove to be of little harm, while others cripple online traffic and paralyze corporate IT departments.

Some of the latest threats, provided by Symantec’s security response are summarized in this article. Please use this information at your own risk, as the author of this article is not responsible for any harm to computer systems.

MSN Messenger Information Disclosure Vulnerability
This is among many vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s software. It affects MSN Messenger service 6.0 and 6.1.

This vulnerability allows an attacker to view contents of files on a remote system. Though this can clearly be a big problem for some, this is not a crippling threat. Simply not accepting communications from unknown users will likely fend against this attack.

Microsoft has released an updated version of this software on its messenger website. (See: http://messenger.msn.com/) The update patches this vulnerability.

W32.Beagle.V@mm Worm
Among many email worms, this will open up a backdoor in the victims’ system. The worm comes in the form of a blank email with an attached game.exe. It will open TCP port 4751. This worm affects most versions of windows.

The protection for this worm is primarily updated antivirus definitions.

W32.Netsky.Q@mm Worm
This worm comes via email. It spoofs the ‘from’ line of an email, and has varying body messages. It includes an attachment with an extension ranging from exe, pif, scr, or zip. The worm affects nearly all versions of windows. Damage for this worm is rated at low, however it’s distribution is high.

Protection is primarily updated antivirus definitions.

Other Email Worms and Viruses
From my personal experience, I seem to be getting a much larger amount of assorted email worms and viruses. Fortunately, I have appropriate tools in place to stop the bugs before they can cause any damage. However, many others are not as protected.

Use aggressive tools to guard your personal computer! The Internet is simply a large community of computers. If we all do our part to defend our computers from becoming giant virus/worm mass-mailers, then the internet will be a much more secure place.

Though this article covered only three of the latest threats, there are thousands more out there!

Virus, Worm and Vulernability information is property of Symantec’s Security Response. Symantec has removal tools for most threats available at their website. For information on the threats listed, please visit http://securityresponse.symantec.com