Virus Day Two: Beware the Copycats
Not many escaped the plague of the "ILOVEYOU" computer virus that hit worldwide yesterday. Now experts are warning you to be on the lookout for copycat viruses today, including one that is called "very funny" and "joke." It arrives in your e-mail box looking like a forwarded message with "fwd:joke" on the subject line and an attachment named "very funny.vbs." Delete it. Do not open it or download it. Unfortunately, the copycat viruses could potentially cause the same damage as the so-called Love Bug, and anti-virus software designed to block "ILOVEYOU" may not work on the new variants. What's the potential for copycats? "There'll be hundreds of these in the coming days," computer security expert Peter Tibbett of ICSA.net of Reston, Virginia told CNN. "Maybe thousands." Millions of computer systems worldwide were affected by the Love Bug--from the Pentagon to the British Parliament. The damage in dollars could reach $1 billion by Monday. Because of the risk of copycat viruses today, it is urged that computers users and companies block all e-mails that have attachments or block attachments with .vbs files.
|
Threaded Mode