Badtrans worm - it's bad

The Badtrans worm is continuing to spread like wildfire, prompting anti-virus companies to urge users to make sure they're fully protected.

It spreads via email and because it automatically generates replies to unread messages in Microsoft Outlook it is able to spread faster than the average trojan.

So far MessageLabs has detected 12,000 instances of Badtrans - that's over 100 copies generated per minute.

It was first spotted on 23 November in the UK and has since been active in 37 countries. It is most widespread in the UK, US and Germany.

An indication of its potency is the fact that it has knocked SirCam off the number one spot in MessageLabs' daily top 10. Until today, SirCam has held the infamous spot for four months.