The message comes as this week the Frethem.K worm has made a reappearance.
According to UK managed service provider MessageLabs' Web site, W32/Frethem.L-mm was first stopped in Indonesia and has been stopped in 39 countries to date. MessageLabs ranks the top three countries it has affected as the UK, US, and the Netherlands.
But, as yet, there haven't been widespread reports of it having a great affect on Australian businesses. Paul Ducklin, head of global support at vendor Sophos Anti-Virus, said it hadn't had many reports of Frethem variants, compared to Klez or SirCam. "It's out there, but not of outbreak proportions," Ducklin said.
Despite this, Ducklin said that there were practical steps which businesses should be taking to protect themselves against threats like the Frethem worm.
"If you can block executable files at your gateway do it--you very rarely need to receive programs via e-mail," he suggested.
He also advises businesses to make sure its OS and network-orientated software, especially Outlook and Explorer, are kept up-to-date with patches. Likewise, to keep anti-virus software up-to-date with identities.
Allan Bell, marketing director at anti-virus software vendor Network Associates, said that it had received a few reports from Australian companies, one of which had seen about 100 copies of the worm at the gateway.
"Indications I've seen is the number of [Frethem] hasn't been great....it's not taken off in same way as viruses like Klez," Bell said.
"We're not expecting it to have much impact in Australia, unless things dramatically change."
