New E-Mail Computer Virus Reported Filed at 8:11 p.m. EDT New York Times (By The Associated Press) http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Computer-Virus.html NEW YORK (AP) -- A new computer virus was spreading across the Internet Thursday, infecting machines by e-mail like the recent Melissa virus but causing more damage by ruining computer files. Anti-virus teams in the government and at universities were trying to determine the severity of the outbreak of ``Worm.Explore.Zip, a virus that arrives by e-mail with an attached file that can infect a computer. Numerous anti-virus software makers issued alerts on the Internet, with one saying the bug had spread to a dozen countries. It wasn t clear how many computers or networks had been stricken so far. General Electric temporarily shut down its e-mail system Thursday morning when the virus was detected in the company s computer network. Microsoft cut off its corporate e-mail connection with the Internet for two hours as a precaution. Virus experts said the volume of calls reporting problems was substantially higher than normal. ``We ve had 10 first-hand reports of sites that have been infected and a substantial numbers of second-hand reports, said Shawn Hernan, a team leader at the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ``Our belief right now is that it s spreading fairly quickly within a site but not as quickly from site to site, Hernan said, noting that his team is working with an anti-virus group in the Department of Defense to contain the outbreak. ``We do know that some sites have taken their electronic mail systems off line to slow the spread of the infection. Trend Micro, a maker of anti-virus software, said ``five large customers with names you would know reported Thursday that their systems were infected. Trend Micro declined to name the companies affected. Worm.Explore.Zip arrives with a friendly message: ``Hi (Recipient Name)! I received your email and I shall send you a reply ASAP. Till then, take a look at the attached zipped docs. The virus actually isn t dangerous unless the computer opens the ``zipped docs, a term referring to a compressed file sent along with the e-mail. By opening that file, a computer user inadvertently activates the virus. The virus then worms its way into the computer user s e-mail program and sends a copy of itself to the address of any e-mail that subsequently arrives. It also hunts through a computer s hard drive and deletes the information in files created by popular software, including the word processor Microsoft Word and the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel. ``The payload on this virus is more destructive than the Melissa payload was, said Bill Pollak, spokesman for the Computer Emergency Response Team. But, he added, ``It s too soon to be able to say how much damage the virus has caused. The virus is the third to draw national attention since late March, when the Melissa virus overwhelmed computer networks with floods of e-mail. A more damaging virus named Chernobyl struck in late April, but did most of its harm overseas. Worm.Explore.Zip did only marginal damage at General Electric because systems managers had been watching for the virus after being alerted to it on Wednesday, said spokeswoman Pam Wickham. ``We had great containment because they spotted it coming into our corporate servers this morning, said Wickham. ``We had some minor (computer) disruptions today, but our systems have been up since mid-afternoon. At least one smaller business didn t fare so well. ``We have the virus, said Rachel Albert, a spokeswoman at InterActive Public Relations of San Francisco. ``It s terrible. A lot of people lost everything they were working on. Koenig's International News - Bill Koenig - http://watch.org/ Post Office Box 671127, Dallas, TX 75367 ________________________________________________________________________ FishNet: Internet service for business and ministry http://www.fni.com/ To subscribe or unsubscribe by Web: http://watch.org/watch-news.html To subscribe to the list send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with no subject and a single body line: subscribe To unsubscribe from the list send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with no subject and a single body line: unsubscribe
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