On July 18th, the Jiangmin Anti-virus Center captured a new variant of the "Socks Worm" virus that spreads via MSN. The virus secretly collects information from infected computers and sends it to a hacker-designated site. It also spreads by sending itself through MSN to the user's friends, making users mistakenly believe it is a file sent by their friends, thereby achieving the purpose of invading the user's computer.
According to anti-virus experts at Jiangmin, the "Socks Worm" variant e can not only achieve automatic startup upon booting up but also automatically update itself. At the same time, the virus connects to a hacker-specified server site, listens for hacker instructions, and allows hackers to remotely control infected computers through the virus to perform various malicious operations. Possible malicious operations include downloading and running specified applications, terminating specific processes, arbitrary file operations, etc., posing a serious threat to the user's computer security.