Email-filtering company MessageLabs has issued an early warning to antivirus vendors that a new mass-mailing worm may be on the march. The anti-virus community had about eight to 12 hours, starting from about 1 p.m. today (2 a.m. GMT) to prepare for the suspected new worm, according to MessageLabs. The filtering company says the timeframe is based on the head-start its vigil over email systems gives it in comparison to traditional antivirus vendors.

The company said the attachment was sufficiently different from other mass mailing worms in circulation -- such as the MyDoom variants -- for it to class the threat as new.

MessageLabs spokesperson, David Banes, said its scanning engine had filtered about 800 emails bound for its clients that carried a suspicious 12-kilobyte pay load.

By the ZDNet Staff.

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