In a tech newsletter, I got the following info on that virus: Ed Bott The Wizard of IZ Alarm bells have been going off at the antivirus companies. McAfee discovered a nasty new Internet worm "in the wild" on April 11, 2001 and traced its origin to New Zealand. They officially dubbed it W32/Badtrans@MM. Tell me more Symantec's Antivirus Research Center uncovered the new virus on the same day and decided to call it W32.Badtrans.13312@mm. Tell me more. F-Secure spotted the worm on its radar a day later and added it to their rogue's gallery as simply BadTrans. Tell me more.. Whatever you call it, this new email virus is a bad boy, with a password-stealing Trojan routine that could potentially cause a surprising amount of damage. Today I'll tell you how bad it is, how to protect yourself and all about Microsoft's big plans to eradicate this type of virus altogether. IT'S BAD, IT'S NATIONWIDE Since its discovery two weeks ago, I've seen a sharp increase each day in the number of BadTrans reports. Here's what you need to know: How do I spot BadTrans? The BadTrans worm works by replying to email messages. When you send email to a machine infected with BadTrans, the virus replies with your original message and an attached file, plus the single line "Take a look to the attachment." The message appears to come from someone you know. The attachment may have any of 16 randomly chosen filenames (Pics.ZIP.scr or YOU_are_FAT!.TXT.pif, for example) with a final extension of .pif or .scr. How do I protect myself? For starters, don't double-click on the attachment. If you receive a message that includes a suspicious attachment, delete it and contact the person who sent it to you (by phone, preferably). Make sure your antivirus software is up-to-date. Tell me more. How do I get rid of it? Current versions of every leading antivirus program easily detect and remove the BadTrans virus. A POSSIBLE CURE? Critics have hammered Microsoft for years, complaining that its software is too vulnerable to viruses. All that changed a few months ago when Microsoft released Service Pack 2 for Office 2000. More changes are in store when Office XP hits the streets on May 31. How it will work: If you've installed the Outlook 2000 Email Security Update or upgraded to Outlook 2002, you're completely protected from BadTrans and other attachment-borne viruses. Unfortunately, this "protection" also blocks some legitimate file attachments. The new Outlook versions scan every incoming message for attachments. The security patch for Outlook 2000 completely hides any file whose extension appears on Microsoft's "Level 1" list of potential viruses. Tell me more. Outlook 2002 is more informative: You see an error message that includes the full name of the file and a note that Outlook blocked access to it. Roy Johnson _______________________________________________ Westfalen-L mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.genealogy.net/mailman/listinfo/westfalen-l
