The meaner, smarter version of the "Love Bug" virus that wreaked havoc and billions of dollars in damage earlier this month has surfaced, a leading antivirus firm warned today, threatening to not only overwrite files on victims' computers but to disable those machines as well.
Perhaps more disquieting is the fact that the latest "Love" mutant alters itself to sneak around traditional virus scanners.
Like its predecessors, VBS.LoveLetter.FW.A exploits features of Microsoft's Outlook email program to send itself to all contacts in the victim's address book. The virus is written as a VisualBasic attachment, which can be recognized by the suffix ".vbs".
Microsoft this week shored up Outlook with an upgrade meant to thwart the spread of viruses like the Love Bug. Symantec and Microsoft were not immediately available to say whether the upgraded Outlook is immune to the latest mutant.
The Love Bug has seen a wide array of mutations--not an uncommon development among viruses. Some of the Love variations have been more destrucitve than the original, damaging system files in addition to the image and audio files targeted by their predecessor.
In addition to damaging system files, the new variant imitates the behavior of biological viruses in making subtle alterations as it spreads.
"Each time the virus spreads, it mutates itself to evade detection," Symantec warned in a statement.
Symantec recommended that information systems administrators filter out email messages that have subject lines with the word "FW" and that bear an attachment with a ".vbs" extension.
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