The name of the virus is W32.sircam.worm, the text of the email that is sometimes sent along with the attatchments is Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice, See you later. Thanks, and there will be 2 .PIF attachments. As long as you don't open these attachments you should be fine. This virus causes Internet users to send email without knowledge to everyone in your address book. Once again this is just information for customer who might be infected with this virus, we as Shaw Technical Support do not support this software fix, we just want to inform our users. We have been receiving high call volumes in regards to this virus and felt we should relay this on to our customers.

Any truth to this? I received this by from ISP tonight. Can anyone verify this please?

Cheers,
Sylvie http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

This one seems to be genuine Sylvie http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

Several of the Net news sites are yacking about it...Just pop over to Yahoo, Excite or any other major net icon and you get the heap. A good place to verify validity of these warnings is antivirus software sites...always a good sales pitch for them. Check out Norton's (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/) site (OK actually it is Syamantec's site) they are usually on top of the list. They also have a hoax page for info.

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Flush 'N' Forget
FE Stokes WWTP (http://www2.apex.net/users/hwuswtp)

Here (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sircam.worm@mm.html) is a link on Symantec's website gibving the details of this virus; prety nasty one if you're on a win98 machine. If you're ever unsure about such a warning you can go to symantec's site or Mcafee's and they will have a catalog of known virii on hand-also you should have a listing in your anti-virus program that you can search on a virus to check it's validity. What ever anti-virus program you run, make sure it either scans your email as it is downloaded( that's why i use and recommend Norton ) or that it is running in the background to protect you from virii you might download. As always the best advice on attachments to email is to delete them if you don't know who they are from! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif




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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

Thanks I will go check it out....

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

iisbob we must've been doing the Vulcan mind meld thing http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Flush 'N' Forget
FE Stokes WWTP (http://www2.apex.net/users/hwuswtp)

heh, you read my mind Bass. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

Check PC World, I posted a notice about the same worm tonight, I was sent 3 copies each with different filenames. Security Portal (http://www.securityportal.com/research/virus/profiles/w32sircam.html) has a good article about it, and plenty other links.

It is definitely a genuine worm, not a fake. It sends emails to every address in the address book, and uses a file it creates in the Recycle bin to assist in sending itself. AFter being initiated it looks for all files with certain extensions, associates itself with one, and sends itself with random filename extensions and the name of the original file.

The ones I received so far are:
April_16.doc.pif
April_17.doc.bat
Senior_Editors.doc.pif

Again, check my post in PC World, and notify all your online contacts, it is a fairly new one and will affect fewer computers if we/you can help get the word out.

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YOU! Out of the gene pool!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

Just thought I'd share with you all that my friend got that virus and ended sending like 50 emails to everyone. I forgot how he got rid of it though.

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RUN AWAY FROM COMPAQS!