MyDoom Anniversary: Another Big Attack In The Offing?

Today’s the first anniversary of the MyDoom.A worm. According to an email I received earlier today from MessageLabs, ‘the world's leading provider of email security services to business’, it was a day that “changed the virus landscape forever”:

27 January 2005 - At 13.26pm on 26 January 2004, MessageLabs,  intercepted its first copy of W32/MyDoom.A. Within the first twenty-four hours, the company had stopped over 1.2 million copies. MyDoom.A, which achieved a peak infection rate of 1 in 12 emails, has proved to represent a landmark in the history of computer viruses, and the legacy lives on..

I’m not sure whether this is just a coincidence, but I’m told by folks at Network Box of a fresh attack by Bagle: “Depending on the next few hours, this could be a large attack,” says Network Box’s Quentin Heron:

Network Box Security Response is tracking several new variants of the Bagle Internet worm… We are seeing thousands of blocks on these variants, from dozens of sites in Hong Kong. We are checking worldwide infection rates at the moment, but this looks extensive.

For those of you who follow these things, the worm matches signatures from Kaspersky Labs of Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.ax and Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.ay.

I’ll keep you posted.