Antivirus vendors are warning that a new worm is beginning to make headway. Dubbed the Fizzer worm, reports of infections have surfaced in Asia and the United States.

According to AVERT Research Center, a division of antvirus maker McAfee, the worm spreads through Kazaa, E-mail. The worm also checks various instant-messaging systems, such as Internet Relay Chat and AOL AIM sites. When the worm receives a reply from an instant messaging server, it awaits further instructions from its author to potentially launch a distributed denial-of-service attack.

The worm mass-mails itself using addresses found in the Windows Address Book and Microsoft Outlook. The worm also sports a keystroke logger and attempts to disable many antivirus applications.

The worm can infect most systems running Microsoft Windows.

Fizzer can appear in E-mails with various messaging, including the following:

Subject: Fwd: Mariss995

Body: There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

Attachment: Mariss995.exe

In order to get infected, users must double-click on the attachment.

Most antivirus firms have labeled fizzer a medium risk threat.