READ - IMPORTANT IF YOU USE A YAHOO E MAIL ADDRESS

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A new worm targeting Yahoo's Web-based e-mail service bent on

collecting addresses for a spam database has been spotted in the

wild, a security company warned Monday.

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The " Yamanner " worm exploits a JavaScript vulnerability in Yahoo's

Web mail, Cupertino, Calif. security specialist Symantec said in a

Monday morning warning to customers of its DeepSight Threat

Management System. Yamanner is spreading, added Symantec, which has

assigned the threat a " 2 " in its 1 through 5 rating system.

The worm targets addresses with the " yahoo.com "

and " yahoogroups.com " domains, and arrives as an HTML message

containing JavaScript. As soon as the recipient views the message,

the script automatically runs to spread the worm to other users in

the Yahoo address book. The message will have a From " address of

av3@... and a Subject: of " New Graphic Site. "

" Harvested addresses from the address book are then submitted to a

remote URL, which is likely to be used for a spam database, " noted

Symantec in its alert.

Yamanner won't execute on the newest Yahoo Mail Beta.

Until Yahoo patches the flaw, Symantec recommended users steer clear

of the service or disable the browser's JavaScript capabilities

before reading any Web mail.