New Virus Evolves
A new worm called Hybris has been spreading across computers in Europe, the United States and South America. While it currently carries a non-destructive payload, some Anti Virus developers are worried that its plug-in architecture could turn it into a much more dangerous virus, opening backdoors in computer systems and escalating the war between virus makers and anti-virus developers. First discovered in South America by Kapersky Labs, a Russian anti-virus developer, the worm has spread through email to Europe and the United States at an increasing pace. “Hybris is one of the more common virus we’re seeing right now,” said Brian Kinj, a member of the technical staff at the CERT coordination center. Because it carries a non-destructive payload, the anti-virus community has been split over the threat level the virus represents. In the United States, the Joint Task Force Computer Network Defense, a division of the US department of defense, has upgraded the virus to a high-risk status. Meanwhile, European virus tracker Peter Kruse, of virus112.com, has announced on Usenet that his company was upgrading the virus threat to a medium risk status, due to the recent spread of the virus in Europe. Companies like Symantec and Sophos, however,…