Bagle/Beagle Variant Includes Source Code

NASAdude writes "Sunday brought a lot of fireworks... and the release of two new Bagle/Beagle variants. One of the variants includes a copy of its source code as an attachment as it spreads via email. It is expected the inclusion of the source will result in numerous variants. It's been dubbed Beagle.Y and Beagle.Z by Symantec and Bagle.ad and Bagle.ae by McAfee. ZDNet ran a story that covers these new variants."

Comments

ouch

[mpost4]

that could hurt, now every kiddy scripter can get a copy of the code. how many (in reason) letters can we put at the end of the virus name to declare a new variant? watch out for Beagle.zzzzzzzzzzzzzz comming this July to an inbox near you.

Re:Title

[rjw57]

You mean the UK Universities which made Beagle2 ?

Not everything space-related is NASA you insensitive clod! :)

Re:Title

[GregChant]

Grandparent was referring to this.

Re:Seen it...

[Anonymous Coward]

In all seriousness, having the source code can't be a bad thing, since this way, it'll be easier to stop if we understand how it works.

You may not understand how it works without the source code but the reverse engineers at AV companies do.

Re:Something I shoulda Done

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been several "anti-virus viruses" that didn't quite work, and ended up being a major pain to deal with.

Re:Scripting exploit

[term8or]

Isn't it a felony to own the source code of malware?

I doubt it(IANAL). It's only a felony if you own the source code of malware with the intention of using it to damage or access an unauthorized computer. Otherwise people who write antivirus products would spend their entire life in jail.