In just a few hours Panda Software's international tech support network has received hundreds of incidents involving this new malicious code
- Panda Software advises users to be extremely careful with e-mail messages received, and to update their antivirus solutions immediately

MADRID, June 5, 2003

The new worm Bugbear.B has started to spread across the globe at an alarming rate. In fact Panda Software's international tech support network has received hundreds of incidents caused by this malicious code from all corners of the world.

Bugbear.B is a polymorphic worm that spreads rapidly via e-mail in a message with a variable subject and attachment. This is an extremely dangerous malicious code, as it can infect a large number of files and render many antivirus and security programs unusable.

Bugbear.B also exploits a known vulnerability in the browser Internet Explorer, which is detected by Panda Software as Exploit/iFrame. By doing this, it will be automatically run when the message carry the worm is viewed through the Outlook Preview Pane.

As well as the actions described above, this worm opens the communications port 36794 in order to allows a hacker to gain remote access to the resources on the affected computer. Furthermore, Bugbear.B logs the keystrokes entered by the user of the affected computer and saves them in a file. By doing this, a hacker that gained access to this file, would be able to obtain confidential information such as passwords, bank account and credit card numbers, etc.

Due to the potential damage this virus can cause, Panda Software advises users to be extremely careful with e-mail messages received and to update their antivirus solutions immediately. The multinational antivirus manufacturer has already released the updates which ensure their antivirus solutions detect Bugbear.B. Therefore, if your software is not configured to update automatically, you can do so from the company's website at http://www.pandasoftware.com.

Users can also detect this and other malicious code using the free, online antivirus, Panda ActiveScan, which is available on the company's website at http://www.pandasoftware.com.

Detailed information about Bugbear.B is available from Panda Software's Virus Encyclopedia.

About Panda Software's virus laboratory

On receiving a possibly infected file, Panda Software's technical staff get straight down to work. The file is analyzed and depending on the type, the action taken may include: disassembly, macro scanning, code analysis etc. If the file does in fact contain a new virus, the disinfection and detection routines are prepared and quickly distributed to users.