Worm spells double trouble for PCs

A double-edged threat that attempts to hijack PCs has surfaced in at least three variants, security companies warned on Friday.

The new pest, Lebreat, is a combined network worm and mass-mailing worm, F-Secure said. Once run on a PC, it installs a backdoor for hackers, downloads the mass-mailer code and attempts to launch a denial-of-service attack that targets security giant Symantec’s Web site, the Finnish antivirus specialist said. The malicious code is also known as Breatle and Reatle at other antivirus companies.