Fergie's Tech Blog

New worm hits AIM network

Joris Evers writes in C|Net News:

A new worm spread quickly on America Online's AIM instant messaging service Wednesday afternoon but was contained within hours, experts said.

The worm spread in instant messages with the text: "LOL LOOK AT HIM" and included a Web link to a file called "picture.pif." If that file was downloaded and opened, the worm would send itself to all contacts on the victim's AIM Buddy List, according to representatives from IM security companies Facetime and IMlogic.

With earlier, similar worms, downloading and opening a file would also install a backdoor or other malicious code on the victim's PC, said Jonathan Christensen, chief technology officer at Facetime. It's not yet known if this latest worm does that. Both IMlogic and Facetime were investigating the picture.pif file Wednesday afternoon.

The worm first appeared around 12 p.m. PDT and appears to have spread quickly until about 1:30 p.m., Christensen said. At that time, AOL likely put a filter on its AIM service, blocking the worm's spread, he said. Also, not much later, the malicious code was removed from the Web.

posted by Fergie @ 6/16/2005 11:11:00 AM