PC users have been urged to scan their computers before 3 February to make
sure they haven't been infected by a destructive virus which is set to activate
for the first time on that date.
Called Nyxem-E, if it is not removed, it will do its
best to delete Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Acrobat and other common files on
infected machines.
The virus, which also goes by the name of MyWife, Blackworm, Kama Sutra, Grew
and CME-24 virus, first surfaced on 16 January. It arrives as an attachment to
emails promising pornography videos and pictures.
Once downloaded to a person's PC, the virus self replicates by harvesting
email addresses and sending itself on. It also has a network worm element so it
will look for any vulnerable computers on a shared network.
Nyxem is programmed to cause as much havoc as it can by targeting 11
different common types of file on infected machines on the third of every month.
It will also attempt to disable anti-virus software to stop it updating and can
also disable the mouse and keyboard on infected machines.
The subject line and body text can vary but anti-virus companies have been
stopping thousands of copies. They have also been able to track the number of
infections, which stands currently at about 300,000 machines worldwide because
the virus reports every fresh infection back to an associated website according
to security firm Lurhq.
Leading security sofware will protect consumers against this virus and remove
it as long as it is up to date. People are therefor being urged to update their
anti-virus software and run a full disk scan to make sure they haven't been
infected by the virus.
If they don't the virus will not only damage their files on 3 February but
continue to activate each month to repeat the problem.
Jason Steer, technical consultant at mail filtering firm Ironport, warned
Nyxem had the potential to be a big problem for consumers. He said 99 per cent
of consumers do not regularly back up their data or update their anti-virus
software.
"We are seeing an upward trend in malicious emails. There are two reasons
behind this. One is for criminal activities, others such as Nyxem are because
the virus writers may be bored and doing it just because they can.
"They will continue to do this as long as PCs remain vulnerable because
people don't back up their data and layers of security software. Consumers
should ensure they keep their anti-virus software up to date and back up
important documents to DVD or CD," he said.
A removal tool can be downloaded from
here
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