The Sircam VirusNote that the Sircam e-mail virus is running rampant and there have been infections of some of SVPAL's subscribers. SVPAL recommends that users obtain, install, and maintain anti-virus software on their computers to protect themselves from computer viruses.Vulnerable SystemsThis virus only affects users of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, Me, and 2000.ImpactThis virus collects e-mail addresses from the Windows Address Book and from cached web pages on your hard drive. The virus then sends copies of itself to these e-mail addresses. These e-mails also includes copies of other documents found on your hard drive possibly exposing sensitive personal information to recipients of the virus e-mail.What to Look ForThe most common form of this worm contains this short paragraph:Hi! How are you?The message may also appear in Spanish. The message may appear to be from someone that you know. This e-mail contains one or more attachments one of which contains the virus. The virus attachment has a double extension such as subject.jpg.lnk that indicates an executable. The first extension is designed to mislead the user into believing that the attachment is of a non-executable (harmless) type. It is generally a bad idea to open attachments with file extensions of EXE/COM/BAT/LNK/PIF or SCR as these are programs and can unleash viruses on your computer. For more informationCheck the CERT Coordination Center for more information on the Sircam virus. Or check SVPAL's virus page for some general virus protection information. |
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Last updated: February 23, 2006