E-mail security company MessageLabs said it has blocked 54,000 copies of new Downloader Trojans since 02:00(BST) on Thursday.
Alex Shipp, senior antivirus technologist for MessageLabs, said: "They are pretty run of the mill -- they use e-mail subjects that have been used before. But we're detecting them from all over the place."
The e-mails, which contain the Trojan horse programs Downloader.ABC and .XZ, purport to be a spam report from an IT administrator. The messages request people run an attached file to prevent their e-mail account from being shut down. MessageLabs said people could be fooled into opening the attachments, which -- when run -- open a backdoor on the infected computer for hackers to use.
MessageLabs said in a statement both Trojans have the same e-mail characteristics and rated the outbreak level as "high".
The message carrying the Trojans reads:
"Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of unsolicited spam messages during the recent week. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any future problems with the online service.
"If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to cancel your membership.
"Virtually yours, Network Administrator Team"
Silicon.com's Dan Ilett reported from London. For more coverage from Silicon.com, click here.
COMMON INTERNET SECURITY PROTOCOL
The latest trend of “Trojan terrorism” affirms the bitter truth that law is always behind technology and it can catch up the culprits only if vigilance and dedication is shown. That must also be supplemented with a coherent and coordinated cooperation between various nations. The concept of “technology transfer” plays a major role in this regard. Thus, instead of transferring the “computers” to least developed and developing countries the countries must concentrate on “transfer of security measures and technologies” for the common benefit of Internet. If the developed countries will avoid transfer of “security technology” then Internet can never be safe. The “digital divide” and “technological gap” will only create various “safe harbours and heavens” for the cyber criminals that can be used as a “platform” to launch various malware attacks all over the world. Thus securing the security of one’s own nation is not the real solution but adoption of common security for the Internet is the real solution. A common “Internet security protocol” is the need of the hour that should be freely and readily available to national authorities to regulate cyber crimes and cyber terrorism.