Reports are coming in that a new variant of the Bugbear virus has been found in the wild and is spreading rapidly from Australia.

First detected early this morning, the Bugbear.B virus is still under analysis and its exact profile has yet to be released.

But it is known that, like its predecessor, Bugbear.B is a mass-mailing worm. It can also spread through network shares and has keystroke-logging and backdoor capabilities.

The worm also attempts to terminate the processes of various antivirus and firewall programs, allowing an intruder easier access to a system. The worm is polymorphic and also infects executable files.

Antivirus firm F-Secure warned that the virus infects by exploiting the known IFrame vulnerability, which affects users who use the preview pane in Microsoft Outlook, and can cause infection just by opening an email.

The first Bugbear virus hit in September/October of last year and quickly became one of the most widespread and common viruses of 2002.

Given the speed that this virus is spreading, it is likely the industry could have a repeat outbreak on its hands. "The original Bugbear worm tried to terminate various processes in the memory of an infected computer and negated virus protection on many machines. It also had an extremely sophisticated backdoor capability," F-Secure said.