‘Bubbleboy’ Virus on Prowl
Anti-virus researchers say that a new type of e-mail-borne computer virus has appeared that for the first time can automatically launch itself even if the messages are never opened by the recipient. The virus, dubbed “bubbleboy” after a popular “Seinfeld” TV show episode, was anonymously mailed to several anti-virus companies Monday. There have been no reports of actual infections by the virus, which does no serious harm but is programmed to mail itself to every e-mail address stored on a computer. In the past, a rule in protecting against viruses was to never open an e-mail message or attachment unless you were certain the contents were clean. “Now, that warning doesn’t hold anymore,” said Vincent Weafer, head of the Symantec Anti-Virus Research Center in Santa Monica. The bubbleboy virus takes advantage of a weakness primarily found in Windows 98 and 2000 in which certain types of programs embedded in e-mail messages will automatically execute when displayed in the “preview pane” of Microsoft’s e-mail program, Outlook Express. “It is a significant step forward,” said Vincent Gullotto, director of the Anti Virus Emergency Response team at Network Associates. “This is going to be a problem for some time to come.”
