Virus Alert: January 27, 2004

[Jason]

Please be aware of the following virus threats that are rapidly spreading: (from Norton)

W32.Novarg.A@mm is a mass-mailing worm that arrives as an attachment with the file extension .bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr, or .zip.

When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into the system by opening TCP ports 3127 through 3198, which can potentially allow an attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access to its network resources.

In addition, the backdoor can download and execute arbitrary files.

The worm will perform a Denial of Service (DoS) starting on February 1, 2004. It also has a trigger date to stop spreading on February 12, 2004.

I've noticed about 20 of these emails personally in the last 48 hours and want everyone to be aware of this threat.  The emails come from all kinds of addresses though the messages are fairly similar and typically have a message body that states:

The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment.

The message then has the infected file attached.  Please delete these messages.  You may also get emails back from sites you did not email stating you did.  Ignore these as well.

For more information, please visit:

http://securityresponse1.symantec.com/sarc/sarc.nsf/html/w32.novarg.a@mm.html

Regards,
Jason

[Jason]

(CNN) -- The MyDoom virus has become the fastest-spreading virus yet, hitting hardest in the United States and Australia, security firm MessageLabs said Wednesday.

You can read the article here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/28/mydoom.spreadwed/index.html

Regards,
Jason