Most "virus alerts" that are circulating on the net are bogus. However,
here's a real virus that could potentially involve some of you, so you
might want to pay attention to this one. It has been active since Friday.
The virus is called "Melissa" and comes in the form of an e-mail message
entitled "Important Message From ...", possibly some person you know well.
And it has a Word attachment entitled "list.doc". If you open that
attachment, and you happen to have Microsoft Outlook on your system, a
macro in the Word file will send itself in a similar e-mail to the first 50
people in will find in the address book there.
No other damage involved, so don't worry too much. Just don't open that
attachment and you should be fine.
See information about the virus at:
http://www.msnbc.com/msn/253803.asp
or in the article excerpt below.
- Flemming
------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times, Sunday March 28th:
>
>NEW FAST-SPREADING VIRUS TAKES THE INTERNET BY STORM
>
>COMPANIES TEMPORARILY HALT E-MAIL SERVICE
>
>(I will relay some of the essential details of the article so you can
>protect yourselves over the next day or so)
>
> "San Fransco, March 27 --- A rapidly spreading computer virus
>forced several large corporations to shut down their e-mail services
>Friday night as it rode the internet on a global rampage, several
>leading network security companies reported today.
>
> ". . . .the virus, which is carried by e-mail, led them to
>believe that tens of thousands of home and business computers have been
>infected on Friday alone. The virus reproduces itself exponentially,
>trying to use each infected message to send 50 more infected messages.
>
> "E-mail infected with the virus, which its creators call
>Melissa, has a top line that begins, 'Important Message From." Next is
>the sender's name, which is often the name of a friend, fellow worker or
>someone else known to the recipient.
>
> "The message within the e-mail is short and innocuous: "Here is
>that document you asked for . . . don't show anyone else :-)"
>Atttached to it is a 40K, Microsoft Word document named list.doc.
>
> "When the recipient opens list.doc, the Melissa virus
>automatically searches for an e-mail address book. It then sends a
>copy of itself -- the message and the attachment --- from the
>recipient to the first 50 names it finds in the recipient's address
>book.
>
> ". . . Several antivirus software makers posted software on
>their web sites that their customers can download to detect the
>virus-encoded message and refuse it.
>
> "A fix for the public was available on http://www.sendmail.com,
>the web site of Sendmail, the company whose post-office software is
>often used to direct mail on the internet.
o o
/ \------------------ Flemming A. Funch -------------------/ \
/ * \ New Civilization Network / Synchronicity Networks / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
o-------o----------- http://www.worldtrans.org/ -----------o-------o
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