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 Virus Update: IWA Discovers Mpeg Audio Virus
 SANTA CLARA, Calif.,

 Virus security researchers at Internet Western Associates
 (Nasdaq: IWAS - news) today announced the discovery of the first
 successful multi-application media-file virus capable of
 infecting most media player software. Affected are Layer 3 audio
 compatible players, commonly called Mp3 players. The virus,
 called Bloat, has been discovered to imbed itself into the
 executable portion of every player in every condition tested so
 far, including Winamp, NAD, Jet Audio, and Unreal Player Max;
 running under Windows 3.x, 9x, and NT operating systems.
 Macintosh and Unix systems do not appear to be affected.

 'Bloat' spreads in a manner similar to the recent Word-Macro
 virus family. Virus code is conveyed and spread within *.mp3
 audio files upon being opened by player software. The program
 inserts a single string of virus code immediately following the
 title/artist tag of an Mp3 file. Bloat only targets files having
 an MP3 or EXE extension. Similar audio formats such as VQF
 (Twin-VQ), WAV, Mp4 (under development), RA (Real Audio), and
 AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) cannot carry the virus.

 The new Layer-3 'Bloat' virus is the first working virus of its
 type found in the wild. Bloat does not cause data loss. As the
 name sugguests, its effect is the opposite; the virus causes
 extra nonsense data to be written to the hard disk during most
 writes. Files written to the hard disk will occupy as much as
 five times the amount of space they appear to be using, and
 should be using. As a result, free hard disk space grows smaller
 and smaller. Once the virus has spread to other programs in the
 system, affected users will experience difficulty opening,
 reading or modifying documents in most of their applications, as
 well as an increased overall sluggishness in system performance.
 Considerable storage space is also lost.

 Bloat uses the Mp3 audio files as carriers between players. Once
 the virus is read by a player, it is loaded into system memory,
 where it spreads back down into system applications. This
 successful travelling method was first documented by researchers
 at the Internet Western Associates AVERT (Anti-Virus Emergency
 Response Team) center in Braintree, MA.

 Detailed information on Bloat Layer 3 and detection/cleanup
 software will be available shortly. With headquarters in Tacoma,
 Washington., Internet Western Associates, Inc. is dedicated to
 providing leading enterprise network security and management
 solutions. McAfee Labs, the anti-virus research affiliate of
 IWA, currently employs more than 85 virus researchers and
 maintains labs on five continents worldwide. In addition to
 studying new and existing security threats, McAfee Labs serves
 as a global resource for virus information and provides rapid,
 follow-the-sun support for virus emergencies worldwide.

 SOURCE: Internet Western Associates, Inc.

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