catholicsphere

Folks, I can’t stress this enough … keep your operating system updated (Microsoft Windows users should use “Windows Update”), as well as virus scanning software definitions.

And, don’t click on attachments unless you are sure of what is contained in them. If you’re not expecting a file from someone, and are unsure of the contents of the attachment, a quick reply email to them will help verify that it was sent by them and the contents are legit.

One of the reasons for the rampant spread of these viruses is because of all the emails, with attachments, that are indiscriminately forwarded. If you’re going to forward a message with a file attachment, write a non-generic message to accompany it.

I believe it good practice to immediately delete, without opening the attachment, any email that has either no personal message or one that simply says something to the effect of “check this out”. I appreciate the thought, but its simply not worth potentially getting a virus because I wanted to see some cute image of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Here’s more about this latest worm that has a dangerous payload …. and a website by the worm’s author is reporting 700,000 infections as of Jan 24th.

Urgent Alert Raised for ‘Blackworm’ D-Day

A high-powered group of security volunteers are raising an “urgent alert” for a potentially destructive e-mail worm crawling through inboxes, warning that the worm’s payload is capable of completely destroying important documents on an infected machine.

The worm, which uses the lure of sexually explicit Kama Sutra photographs to trick e-mail users into executing an attachment, is programmed to deliver the destructive payload on the third day of every month.

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However effective or ineffective this may be, we urge users to update their anti-virus [signatures] as soon as possible and scan their computers and/or networks. Adding to the confusion is the fact that anti-virus vendors are all using different names to identify the worm. In addition to Kama Sutra, the worm has been named Blackworm, Blackmal, MyWife and Nyxem.

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Once the worm’s UPDATE.EXE file is run, it destroys all Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP and PSD files on all available drives.