Symantec Updates Submission Rates of W32.Beagle.AB@mm

Hong Kong -- 19 July 2004 - Symantec Security Response is continuing to monitor the W32.Beagle.AB@mm activities. At its peak, our experts were tracking approximately 30 submissions per hour. However, now we are seeing the numbers trending down -- about 10 submissions per hour. To date, Symantec has received a total of 881 submissions globally - 70 are corporate customers. In APAC, there are 51 submissions, with 2 from corporate customers.

In an earlier e-mail that was issued on Friday, 16 July, we incorrectly identified that the worm opened a backdoor on TCP port 1234. The correct port is 1080.

Symantec Security Response recommends that IT administrators filter attachments not on a list of approved types at the e-mail gateway and apply the Outlook E-mail Security Update (Q262631) in order to block user access to certain attachment types. This update will also notify the user of applications attempting to access the Outlook address book. Additionally, Symantec experts strongly advise users not to open e-mails from unknown sources and to keep all antivirus definitions up to date.

For those impacted by the threat, Symantec is offering a free fix-tool to remove W32.Beagle.AB@mm from their systems. To download the tool, visit http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/FxBeagle.exe..

Symantec will continue to actively monitor threat activity and provide updates as necessary.

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