KASPERSKY LABS claimed this afternoon that there's already a new version of the Blaster/Lovesan worm on the loose.

And it says that's likely to mean a repeat of the outbreak we've seen during this week. The new variety of Lovesan/Blaster exploits the same vulnerability.

Kaspersky says that the number of infected systems is around the 300,000 mark, and the new variety may double this number.

"In the worst case, the world community can face a global Internet slow down and regional disruption... to the World Wide Web," said Eugene Kaspersky, head of the labs.

The new variety uses the name TEEKIDS.EXE instead of MSBLAST.EXE, different code compression, and different signatures in the body of the worm. µ

By INQUIRER STAFF :blackeye:

Norton's have updated their removal tool to handle the new "b" varient.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.tool.html

Hopefully my shop will be as protected as we were before! I won't call it luck, cuz we bust our *$$e$ to keep it this way!!

Last I checked Symantec, they announced a "C" variant as well.