W32.Welchia.Worm - Lvl 4 - W32.Dumaru@mm - Lvl 3

Symantec has upgraded this threat due to the nature of the worm and its effect particularly on corporate enterprise networks. The worm expoits two vulnerabilities, Microsoft DCOM RPC vulnerability (described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-026 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-026.asp) using TCP port 135 and Miscrosoft WebDavvulnerability (described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-007 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-007.asp) using TCP port 80.

(The worm will attempt to download the DCOM RPC vulnerability patch from Microsoft's update site. If the update has been successful, the worm will reboot the computer so the update takes effect). Once a system is infected, the worm aggressively searches for other machines to infect. This results in an increase in traffic that impacts the network performance.

Symantec is receiving reports of severe disruptions on the internal networks of large enterprises caused by ICMP flooding related to propagation of W32.Welchia.worm. W32.Welchia.Worm has been propagating at a rapid pace in the wild, especially once inside corporate perimeters. In some cases enterprise users have been unable to access critical network resources.

Even though corporations had perimeter defences in place, in response to the W32.Blaster.Worm, internal infection is running high. Deployment of the security patch in large, geographically dispersed environments is exprected to take weeks to months. Both the W32.Blaster.worm and W32.Welchia.Worm are clear examples of why multiple levels of security needs to be deployed at various tiers of the network - including policy compliance for remote access users.

For more information on how the worm executes itself - please visit http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.welchia.worm.html.

Symantec has also discovered a new mass mailing worm - W32.Dumaru@mm that has been rated at a Level 3 (moderate). This worm drops an IRC Trojan onto the infected machine. The worm gathers e-mail addresses from certain file types and uses its own SMTP engine to e-mail itself. The e-mail will appear to have been sent from security@microsoft.com.

Consumers and small businesses are encouraged to update their security patches, antivirus and firewall software, to ensure they are protected from W32.Blaster.Worm and W32.Welchia.Worm.

ENDS

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