Undetected Warezov Worm on the March Again
I came in this morning to find nine e-mails with a subject of 'Mail server report' sitting in my inbox. They're of course malware, with the same type of subject and message body as previous malware blasts.
Thing is, I immediately recognized them - but the anti-spam and antivirus at my work network and my desktop didn't. They all made it through to my inbox no questions asked.
What's more, I uploaded the .zip file attachment - Update-KB4901-x86.zip - to Virustotal.com, a site I've been using more and more lately. Virustotal runs anything you upload through 31 different antivirus scanners. None of them caught this variant.
F-Secure put up a post today saying it recognizes this blast as the Warezov worm, but it didn't recognize the file I uploaded on Virustotal's scan.
Part of the reason for this universal blind eye may be that the attachment is in .zip form. It's entirely possible that many of these scanners might recognize the worm if I unzipped the file (which would give me an executable .exe file, according to F-Secure's post).
But I'm not going to test that on my work desktop - even saving the inactive .zip file to my desktop (so that I can upload it to Virustotal) gives me the willies. I know that the .exe shouldn't do anything unless I double-click it, but I'm playing it safe. Sort of.
It may also be that, as often happens, the jerks behind Warezov are churning out new variants faster than the antivirus programs can react.
In any case, this just goes to show that no matter how many security tools you use (and you should at least use some sort of antivirus program and firewall), your own good sense is still your best protection. Stay sharp.
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There are new malware threats coming out all the time, and unless you have a good security suite, like one from Anonymizer.com, you are going to have a lot of problems battling those threats. It can be scary out there, but if you have the right protection, it doesn't have to be.