Email a collegue.| Headline: | Virus Alert |
| Description: | Virus Alert: Christmas crackers cook up festive worm
Anti-virus software houses are warning users to update their systems and be on the alert for a mass-mailing worm program that masquerades as an electronic Christmas card. Virus Alert: Christmas crackers cook up festive worm Anti-virus software houses are warning users to update their systems and be on the alert for a mass-mailing worm program that masquerades as an electronic Christmas card. The Zafi.D virus (or Win32.Erkez.D@mm for Symantec) arrives with the subject heading "Merry Christmas", or its equivalent in a variety of languages. Variations of the virus have circulated in previous years and carries an attachment with a variety of names and one of the following suffixes: .bat; .cmd; .com; .pif; or .zip. If activated, the program displays the error message " Error in packed file!" and downloads a Trojan horse program that alters registry settings and begins to send itself out to email addresses harvested from the infected machine. The program also opens a potential a back door in the infected PC. The D variant was discovered on 12 December, and upgraded to a medium threat by McAfee on Tuesday 14 December. Symantec classified it as a level 3 threat on Wednesday the 15th. The usual precautions are advised: Turn off and remove unneeded services such as an FTP server, telnet, and Web server, which are sometimes left on as a default. Removing them reduces the avenues of attack open to the worm Keep your anti-virus software and security patch levels up-to-date, especially on computers that host public Internet services. Configure your email server to block or remove email that contains file attachments that are commonly used to spread viruses, such as .vbs, .bat, .exe, .pif and .scr files. Isolate infected computers quickly to prevent further spread. Train employees not to open attachments unless they are expecting them. Also, do not execute software that is downloaded from the Internet unless it has been scanned for viruses. And, as in the case of Downloader.Psyme do not be tempted to click links in spam emails from unknown sources. |
| Date: | 16.12.2004 |
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