Worm Variants Wriggle Onto the Scene

Dr Solomon’s Software, the current publisher of the Virex anti-virus utility, announced two Virex updates in quick succession last week to find and remove two newly discovered variants of the AutoStart 9805 worm, originally reported in “Autostart Worm Breaks Mac Malware Silence” in TidBITS 428. Dr Solomon’s says the variants use different filenames from those used by the original AutoStart 9805 worm, making them harder to find, and replacing previous versions of the worm, if found. AutoStart 9805-B doesn’t restart the computer, as do the others, and AutoStart 9805-C doesn’t directly damage files. Also, the B variant targets different kinds of data files than the original for its damaging sweeps.