Info about latest Virus ala Mary Spero

[Guest guest]

Hi folks. Every night on our local news, they've been telling us about

this new virus that is hitting first the business world and soon is

expected to come to us individuals. Best I could make out is that .doc

documents come as attachments and folks open them, and WHAM... it jumps to

the 'address' book and begins mailing itself out to names found there and

then continues to do the same when opened by those each new bunch of

recipients. OK, that was just MY take on what I heard. But, our dear

Mary Spero, owner of TNT recipe list, has sent out a coupla emails to her

groups and this one today (SEE BELOW) seems to explain it well and in

detail and tells us what to look for and what to do, where to go for more

info. (I am trusting that Mary doesn't mind me passing her note on in the

hopes that it will save some of you grief. AND Karen too, to her wonderful

-- I love it -- Veg-Recipes group.) THANK YOU, MARY. Brenda Adams

 

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The virus vandals have once again exploited Microsoft's software, in

particular Word97, Word2000, and Outlook. If you are running any of

these programs, read on.

 

The Melissa virus is another macro virus, which spreads in the usual

way, from user-to-user via infected MS-Word files. It was first

uploaded to certain unsavory Internet Newsgroups by an AOL user, and

has already spread worldwide. Like happy99.exe, it is designed to be

fast-spreading, by exploiting a user's e-mail program to send itself

automatically to others. Specifically, it uses Microsoft Outlook

(NOT Outlook Express, nor any other e-mail program) to spread.

 

It does so by sending infected Word documents as attachments to the

top fifty (yes, 50) addresses in a user's Outlook Global Address Book.

This is a major concern for large firms, because Outlook orders the

addresses with e-mail lists first, followed by individual e-mail

addresses. So even ONE instance of the virus will spread all over a

large network quickly, overloading the servers.

 

Users are very likely to open the attached infected Word document,

because it is cleverly headed with a topic line that begins

" Important Message " followed by the sender's name, very likely

the name of someone known to the recipient. You could receive such a

message from your boss, co-worker, or anyone who has your e-mail

address in their Outlook directory.

 

Or the message could come from anyone who sends you mail, using

Microsoft Outlook in combination with Word97 or Word 2000. That's

because once the virus infects their copy of Word, every document

they access will be infected, and if they send that document via

e-mail (or otherwise), it can do the same thing, regardless of the

title they choose for the document.

 

Users will not know they have been infected, nor will the sender know

the documents have been sent. A user may become alerted to the

infected document if the Macro Security settings are enabled. This

warning will be displayed to the user when the document is opened.

 

Check with your anti-virus vendor, because many of them have already

produced updates for their software. Also, if you have not done so

already, TURN ON MACRO VIRUS PROTECTION in Microsoft Word, by

following this procedure:

 

>From the TOOLS menu, click OPTIONS, then click the GENERAL tab, then

check the " Macro Virus Protection " box, and then click OK. If the

box is already checked, do nothing, and click CANCEL instead.

 

More information is available at:

www.cert.org/advisories/CA-99-04-Melissa-Macro-Virus.html

 

I can't emphasize this strongly enough, so here it is, in capital

letters:

 

IF YOU OPEN/RUN ANY E-MAIL ATTACHMENT THAT CONTAINS AN EXECUTABLE

FILE, OR A FILE THAT COULD CONTAIN AN EXECUTABLE FILE AND/OR A MACRO,

FROM ANYONE, YOU ARE TAKING A RISK. READ THE TEXT MESSAGE, AND

DISCARD THE ATTACHMENT, WHATEVER IT IS, AND WHOMEVER IT'S FROM. AND

TELL THE SENDER YOU HAVE DONE SO, AND WHY. AND NEVER DOWNLOAD ANY

EXECUTABLE FILE FROM ANY NEWSGROUP.

 

Message From MarySpero (MS MARY E SPERO)

to The TNT Recipes List.