Nasty virus

Unknown

The virus known as W32.Badtrans.B@mm, and it is known to do one or more of the following things:

1. It
uses the email on an infected system  to send copies of itself to people
you have emailed previously.

2. It adds an underscore mark at the
beginning of the return address, making it less likely that people will be able
to reply to you and let you know you have the virus.  For example, if your
email address were theinternetrocks@earthlink.net, the virus will
email itself with a return address of _theinternetrocks@earthlink.net .

3. It
installs a 'trojan horse' program, which records each keystroke- everything you
type on your computer, and then sends that information to a third party (by
sending it to an IRC chat channel, a mailing list, etc.)  That third party
would then have access to any sensitive information that you typed while
infected.   Because of this, we STRONGLY recommend that you change
your password once your system has been cleaned of the virus, and that you
consider doing so to any other sensitive information that you have typed while
infected.

4. It may also give the third party the ability to connect to
your computer directly, giving them access to your hard drive (all of the files
on the computer.)

 

5. There is a  newer version you don't even
need to open the attachment, just recieve the email. So make sure your anti
virus is current. My was protection was10 days old and it still got
through.

Earthlink offers a free virus scan in cooperation
with Symantec's Norton group. Please note that this scan may take several hours
to complete, depending on how many files you have in your computer. This free
scan is only compatible with windows computers. The link for that is:


http://www.earthlink.net/freescan/

 

Good luck fighting these nasties