By Aled Herbert, 11 November 1999 16:12
NEWS Security experts have warned that variants of the BubbleBoy email worm virus could soon be in the wild. BubbleBoy is the first instance of malicious code which can infect a user's PC without needing an executable attachment. Although there are no reported instances of computers actually being attacked by the virus, experts are concerned that the technique will soon be incorporated by other virus writers. Alex Shipp, virus technologist at Star ISP, told Silicon.com: "Although BubbleBoy hasn't been detected in the wild I expect variants of it will start to appear now. Now that hackers know it's possible to spread a virus without the use of attachment, they'll all start doing it." The worm virus only affects Windows 95 and 98; an error in the code means that Windows NT machines are not infected. The code is also dependant on Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express as well as Internet Explorer 5 to successfully install itself. In its present form, BubbleBoy is benign and merely uses the infected email client to spread to all addresses in the user's address book. However, experts are worried that the code could be changed to damage systems 'in the wild'. Microsoft has released a patch which will protect PCs from the virus. Further information is available from http://www.microsoft.com/security/bubbleboy.htm
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