Worm wriggles through Yahoo mail flaw

by admin June 13, 2006 at 7:04 am

A new worm that targets Yahoo e-mail users is on the loose, taking advantage of an JavaScript flaw, a security company has warned.

The Yamanner worm targets all versions of Yahoo Web-based mail except the latest beta version, Symantec said in an advisory released Monday.

At the time of the advisory, there was no patch for the vulnerability. But by later on Monday, Yahoo said it had come up with a fix for the flaw, which it said had affected very few of its customers.

“We have taken steps to resolve the issue and protect our users from further attacks of this worm. The solution has been automatically distributed to all Yahoo Mail customers, and requires no additional action on the part of the user,” a Yahoo representative said.

Both Yahoo and Symantec are encouraging people to update the antivirus definitions on their PCs.

Yamanner arrives in a Yahoo mailbox bearing the subject header “New Graphic Site.” Once the message is opened, the computer becomes infected and the worm spreads itself to people on the Yahoo e-mail contact list. The harvested e-mail addresses are also sent to a remote online server, which Symantec suspects may use the information for spam campaigns.

Full story: CNET News.com