Feb 3rd - Not a good day for downloading & browsing (be careful !)

February 2, 2006

Dear Friend(s),

You are requested to scan your computers before February 3, 2006 to avoid

falling victim to a destructive virus. Please be careful while downloading,

browsing or operating mails on Feb 3. On that date the Nyxem virus is set to

delete Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Acrobat files on infected computers.

Nyxem is thought to have caught out many people by promising porn to those who

open the attachments on e-mail messages carrying the virus.

Anti-virus companies have stopped lots of copies, suggesting it had infected a

large number of computers.

The Nyxem-E Windows virus first emerged on 16 January and has been steadily

racking up victims ever since. Nyxem-E is also known as the Blackmal, MyWife,

Kama Sutra, Grew and CME-24 virus.

Like many recent viruses, Nyxem tries to spread by making people open

attachments on e-mail messages that are infected with the destructive code.

The subject lines and body text of the various messages Nyxem uses vary, but

many falsely claim that pornographic videos and pictures are in the attachments.

On infected machines the virus raids address books to find e-mail addresses to

send itself to.

Unlike many recent viruses Nyxem is set to overwrite 11 different types of

file on infected machines on the third of every month. The list of files to be

over-written includes the most widely used sorts of formats.

Separately, the virus also tries to disable anti-virus software to stop it

updating and can also disable the mouse and keyboard on infected machines.

Users were being urged to update anti-virus software and to scan their system

to ensure they had not been caught out. Many anti-virus firms have also produced

tools that help clean up infected systems.

By contrast many home users did not regularly patch Windows, update anti-virus

or perform full system scans to ensure their machine stays clean. Users were

also encouraged to make regular back-ups of any files they want to preserve.

Source:

With Regards,

M. Imran

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