Sasser.E is currently rated a low security threat by antivirus firm Network Associates and rates a "2" on rival Symantec's five-point scale. "Microsoft's technical analysis of this variant indicates that the E variant was released on Monday, four days prior to the suspect being taken into custody," the representative said.Īntivirus experts do not expect this latest version of Sasser to spread as fast as previous variants.
While antivirus experts are not positive whether Sasser.E started spreading before or after the arrest, Microsoft believes that the fifth version of the worm was released four days before the teenager was arrested, according to a representative of the software giant. German law enforcement forces believe that the suspect also coded all 28 versions of the mass-mailing computer virus NetSky. German authorities arrested an 18-year-old resident of Waffensen, a small town in the Lower Saxony region of Germany, late on Friday, according to Microsoft, which tipped off authorities after informants came forward with details about the suspected Sasser author. on Sunday, but Friedrichs said the spread of the infection is moving slow enough to indicate that the worm could have been released earlier in the week. The security company first captured a copy of the worm at 1 a.m. "It appears that whoever released it is trying to notify people that their systems are vulnerable," said Oliver Friedrichs, a senior manager in Symantec's security response center. It attempts to warn people whose computers are vulnerable that their systems have not been patched for a widespread Microsoft Windows vulnerability exploited by the program. The latest variant, Sasser.E, was released a week ago, according to Microsoft. Antivirus companies discovered a fifth version of the Sasser variant this weekend, within hours of German police arresting an 18-year-old man who confessed to being the Sasser worm's author.