Hackers capitalizing on Mydoom's success

A back door to computer systems opened by the Mydoom e-mail worm is turning into a bonanza for thousands of hackers, who are scanning the Internet furiously for systems infected by Mydoom, antivirus experts said Wednesday. The opening in the defenses of infected computers could allow malicious hackers to secretly install a Trojan horse program, keylogging software or simply peruse files on infected systems, and may make cleanup after Mydoom difficult, according to interviews with the experts.

Mydoom, which first appeared on Monday, is still spreading on the Internet and is believed to have infected between 100,000 and 300,000 systems worldwide, according to Craig Schmugar, virus research manager at the McAfee antivirus division of Network Associates, Inc. (NAI).

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