[apologies for crossposting ... you wouldn't believe how many lists I feel
morally-bound to send this to]
Greetings,
This morning I finally connected long enough to my ISP to update my virus
definitions for Norton antivirus and I was greatly dismayed to discover
that I had been infected with the W32.Plage.Worm. I have no idea when I was
infected with same, but the virus apparently first appeared in January of
2000 (which coincides with a time I was having -- and continue to have --
problems connecting with my ISP, including in regards to such things as
scheduled tasks like Live Update for Norton Antivirus). It isn't really a
harmful thing, as far as viruses/worms go, but it is one of those things
one can pass along without even knowing it -- it supposedly sends a message
to any unanswered message it finds in your email program. If you have
received a message like the following from me (or anyone else, for that
matter):
P2000 Mail auto-reply:
' I'll try to reply as soon as possible.
Take a look to the attachment and send me your opinion! '
> Get your FREE P2000 Mail now! <
... you should do a virus scan. There is an attachment that comes with the
message as a supposed .zip file which can have various names (mine was
news_doc.zip but apparently the name is randomly selected from a list). If
you haven't received such a message, there should be no need to worry.
As for what the virus does, if you're on your computer between midnight and
2 a.m. on a Wednesday, you'll be given a rather disturbing image on your
screen of Hitler with a gun in his mouth and an appeal to stop the "plage"
(sic) affecting the world.
More info on the virus (including info on the various file names of the
attachment containing it) at:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.plage.worm.html
or
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/p2000.htm
I sincerely hope I haven't passed this along to you, but if I have, my
sincerest apologies.
regards,
dm
]|[David Meadows]|[ http://web.idirect.com/~atrium ]|[Rogue Classicist]|[
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Mar 05 2000 - 18:37:13 GMT