Virus Characteristics
This description has been posted to inform users of a threat which was seen on December 18, 2001. This threat is detected as
JS/IEStart with the current dats when scanning all files.
Email messages were circulating which referred to a web site. Upon visiting that site, each message in the Microsoft Outlook Sent Items folder was sent again with a replaced subject and message body. The sent messages are then deleted. This script made use of the Microsoft virtual machine vulnerability. All versions of Internet Explorer 5.5 (SP1) and earlier can be susceptible to this vulnerability.
As this script was quickly removed from this site, it no longer poses a threat. The message appeared as follows:
Subject: Hi!!
Hi. I found cool site! http://[omitted].cjb.net It's really cool!
The URL links to an adult web site. Going to the actual site that the email message displays (not the one listed here) results in many popup windows getting displayed. Some of which contain other script trojans, such as JS/IEStart and JS/NoClose.
The default start page of Internet Explorer is set to an adult web site.
VBS/Loding.a@MM first used this technique of sending the URL of an infectious web page in an email message back in August of 2001.