Date Posted:11:13:31 09/22/03 Mon Author:TONY KOECKE Subject: NEW VIRUS OUT THERE
A new computer virus/worm was discovered yesterday, and has been quite successful already. If it hasn't tried to get to your inbox yet, it will be. Our corporate antivirus software has been stopping it, because it is updated every day, and because it is set to not allow any executable file attachments to come in by email. (Our antivirus software strips out the attached virus-executing file, but still allows the message to be delivered, so if you see it in your inbox, don't worry about it. The resulting attached file is a text message from our antivirus software, informing that the original attachment was removed because it was a disallowed type or was virus-infected.)
This one arrives as an email message which pretends to be from Microsoft, the sender shows as Microsoft and the body of the message looks extremely Microsoft-official. The message tries to get the intended victim to run an attached file which supposedly is a critical security update from Microsoft which is urgently needed to be run to protect your computer from the most recently discovered Windows security holes. Of course, if the attached file is executed, the computer will be infected by the worm, which among other nasty deeds, also tries to shut down any existing antivirus software and firewall software, and may have some success at that.
So, if your home computer isn't running a constantly updated antivirus software and a firewall software or hardware,
plus the Windoze security patches from
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
it's only a matter of time until it gets infected with a virus or worm or trojan.
Email messages which are not expected should not be opened.
New viruses can't be detected and stopped by antivirus software until they've been discovered and the antivirus software companies write definitions for them and distribute the new definitions. So, if your home PC was updated with the latest and greatest antivirus definitions on Wednesday, but not since then, this new virus won't be detected by your antivirus software.
Microsoft never distributes update files by email, as also most software companies don't. All emailed file attachments are to be suspected.
Detailed description of this latest virus is here:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.swen.a@mm.html
All kinds of security and virus and hoax info is here:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/
The best personal firewall software is free, and can be downloaded here:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp?lid=zadb_zadown
NEW VIRUS OUT THERE