Fact Check

New Graphic Site Virus

Information about the 'New Graphic Site' computer virus warning.

Published June 12, 2006

Claim:

Virus:   New Graphic Site (aka JS.Yamanner@m)


Status:   Real.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2006]




There is an email going around with the subject "New Graphics Site". It is spreading fast as about 100 people I know have gotten it just today. If you get an email with that in the subject line delete it quickly and DO NOT OPEN IT! This is a new virus I have been told.


Origins:   "New

Graphic Site" is a mass-mail worm written in JavaScript that takes advantage of a vulnerability in Yahoo! Mail, exploiting a hole that allows scripts embedded in HTML-based e-mail messages to execute via recipients' browsers. Arriving as an e-mail message with a subject line of "New Graphic Site," the worm targets e-mail addresses in the yahoo.com and yahoogroups.com domains, replicates by running a script that sends copies of itself to similar addresses harvested from infected users' Yahoo! Mail folders, and sends those harvested addresses to a collecting remote server (www.av3.net).

Symantec has rated this worm a Level 2 threat (Level 1 is the least harmful ranking) and has noted (despite the wording of the warning quoted above) that the worm does not appear to be spreading widely. Users of the new Beta version of Yahoo! Mail have not been affected by this worm so far.

Additional information on this worm can be found on the Symantec web site.

Last updated:   12 June 2006


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.