MyDoom: How it became the fastest worm ever

It's official: MyDoom is the fastest spreading e-mail virus or worm in computer history, beating out last August's SoBig.f. Security services firm MessageLabs reports that MyDoom, at its peak last Tuesday, was responsible for 1 out of every 12 e-mails. That compares with 1 out of every 17 e-mails for SoBig.f. But what's even more incredible is that MyDoom does nothing special; instead, it relies largely upon classic, tried-and-true e-mail infection methods dating back at least four years. Which means we have only each other to blame for this outbreak.

SO HOW DID MyDoom do it? According to F-Secure, a Finnish antivirus company, MyDoom employed classic social engineering techniques. The author of MyDoom (which gets its name from a misspelling in the code for "my doomain," hence "MyDoom") crafted basic messages that looked like they could be legitimate e-mails.

Read Full Story