This virus alert page is being published in order to help our users to be aware of potential destructive viruses in order to better protect their computers. Although our members' computers are not on networks, many of the warnings will still apply to your personal computers. The long and short of protection is, and will probably remain, do not open emails or attachments from someone you don't know.
Members are encouraged to obtain and maintain Norton or McAfee antivirus programs, or similar programs from other vendors. Updates should be downloaded on a daily or weekly basis.
For
information on the current threats, click here for the Norton
Antivirus website,
or here for the McAfee
Antivirus website.
Effective April 11, 2005, the scope of this page will also include computer scams in which you might find yourself involved. These can be as dangerous and even more devastating than computer viruses.
January 22, 2007
ITD has identified a new worm trying to infect computers in the WSP network. Therefore, it is possible that the rest of us could also receive it. The worm is referred to by Symantec as ‘Trojan.Peacomm’ (Symantec’s Antivirus is the agency’s standard). The worm propagates itself when you open e-mail attachments. Usually the e-mails are from someone you don't know, contain real or fictitious news headlines in the subject line, and the body of the message will appear similar to the following:
Some parts of this message were removed because they violated your mail server's policies.
Full Story.exe was removed from the message because it violates your mail server's policy.
Parts of your message have been stripped because they were considered suspect.
If you get such an email, delete the e-mail and use caution whenever reading e-mails. The following are best practices regarding the reading of e-mails:
- Treat all e-mails that come unsolicited from people you do not know or deal with as suspect.
- Do not open messages that contain awkward or garbled wording in the subject lines.
- Do not open e-mail attachments unless you are reasonably sure of the sender’s intent.
- Do not be afraid of offending anyone by deleting a message or checking with the sender regarding any e-mails you are not sure about. It is better to remove suspicious e-mail or confirm a message’s legitimacy with the sender than to have your computer infected with a virus and not able to open any e-mails at all.
March 29, 2006
Microsoft has announced the existence of a security problem in all supported versions of the Internet Explorer (IE) program and is working on a patch to fix the problem. This security vulnerability permits malicious websites to load programs onto a user’s computer without the user’s permission. It has been reported that over 200 websites are currently affected, including some belonging to legitimate businesses. To reduce the risk of loading a malicious program, you should not browse on the Internet to unfamiliar websites or click on links from familiar websites that connect somewhere else. Microsoft expects to release a patch in two weeks.
January 20, 2006
A new "phishing" scam: The current email making the rounds about making sure you register your cell phone on the Do Not Call list is a scam. There is indeed a legitimate Do Not call List you should put your cell phone into, but this is not it.
Please go to http://www.scambusters.org/cellphonedonotcalllist.html for the details.
To safely put your cell phone on the Do Not Call list, go directly to http://www.donotcall.gov.
January 4, 2006
A new "phishing" scam: You may receive an email supposedly sent by the IRS letting taxpayers know about a "handy" new Web form that they could use to check on the status of their federal income tax returns and refunds. It even has an irs.gov email address. Please go to www.scambusters.org/irs.html for the details.
November 22, 2005
SUBJECT: W32.Sober.X Virus/Worm Alert
W32.Sober.X@mm is a mass-mailing worm that uses its own SMTP engine to spread. It sends itself as an email attachment to addresses gathered from the compromised computer. The email may be in either English or German. This worm “spoofs” or generates its own “TO:” and “FROM:” addresses from files found on an infected computer. Most of these addresses will appear legitimate and may include valid e-mail addresses. Several have used Admin@cia.gov or Department@cia.gov
SYSTEMS AFFECTED:
Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP
PROTECTION:
Symantec AntiVirus (SAV) Client or Norton AntiVirus (NAV) must have a date of November 19, 2005 or newer to protect from this worm.
SUBJECT — One of the following:
- Your Password
- Registration Confirmation
- smtp mail failed
- Mail delivery failed
- hi, ive a new mail address
- You visit illegal websites
- Your IP was logged
- Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie
ATTACHMENT — One of the following:
- reg_pass.zip
- reg_pass-data.zip
- mail.zip
- mail_body.zip
- mailtext.zip
- list[RANDOM CHARACTERS].zip
- question_list[RANDOM CHARACTERS].zip
- downloadm.zip
An infected attachment will contain the following file, which is a copy of the worm:
File-packed_dataInfo.exe
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Make sure you are using current antivirus signatures.
2. Do not open any unsolicited e-mail or attachment. Subject matter, double file extensions ( i.e. .xls.scr, .doc.pif), or foreign languages are examples of suspicious items. Delete anything suspicious.
