New hybrid virus could be a cyber accident waiting to happen

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Anti-virus companies have identified a new computer virus that could be characterised as a remote-controlled time bomb, ITWeb reports.

Information security company Kaspersky Labs says the Autorooter Internet worm has been sent as spam to many e-mail recipients, but is not widely spread yet because the self-replication component of the worm has not been activated.

Kaspersky Labs describes Autorooter as part Internet worm and part backdoor Trojan. The company believes the author may still activate the self-replication function of the worm and that the author is possibly trying to create a network of infected computers to prepare a global virus epidemic or perform a global hacker attack.

Kaspersky Labs anti-virus experts strongly recommend that all users download the appropriate Microsoft patch and block TCP ports 135, 139 and 445 using their firewalls.