Fizzer Worm On The Loose

Called Fizzer, the worm can install a program that logs keystrokes and a Trojan Horse program that allows an attacker to remotely manage infected computers, according to Kaspersky Labs, a security software company.

The worm surfaced Friday in Germany but picked up speed Monday mainly in Asia and the United States, iDefense, a security intelligence services firm, reported.

Symantec rated Fizzer as a level three on a scale of one to five, with five being the most serious.

Fizzer arrives as an e-mail with various subject lines, messages and file attachments, such as "I think you might find this amusing" in the subject line and a message that reads "Let me know what you think of this."

"To spread via Kazaa, the worm creates multiple copies of itself under random names and places the files in a victim computer's dedicated Kazaa file-sharing folder," making itself available to other Kazaa participants, Kaspersky Labs said.

"This is a particularly unpleasant strain of mass mailing virus that has already reached a peak of one in 474 e-mails to date. Although perhaps not as prevalent in these initial stages as other notable outbreaks such as Klez or Bugbear, Fizzer is certainly likely to be around for a long while," Message Labs, an e-mail security services provider, said in a statement Monday.