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Virus alert - Kama Sutra
Posted by Sandy on February 2, 2006

This is a warning about a new computer virus that is set to trigger on February 3. Windows users should scan for viruses, update anti-virus software, and -- most important -- make backups of personal files as soon as possible.

Details
A computer virus called Nyxem.E -- also known as W32.Blackmal.E@mm, Kama Sutra, W32/MyWife.d@MM, Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e -- appeared recently and spread rapidly by e-mail to hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

The virus infects Windows PCs. Non-Windows systems are immune.

Here's what this virus is programmed to do:
- disable anti-virus software on the infected PC
- find e-mail addresses on the infected PC
- send copies of the virus to those addresses

But that's not all. On the third day of the month, the virus gets nasty. It searches for documents and replaces them with gibberish.

The virus targets the following types of files: doc (Word), xls (Excel), ppt (PowerPoint), zip (Zip archives), rar (Rar archives), pdf (Adobe PDF), psd (Photoshop), as well as files ending in .mdb .mde .pps or .dmp.

In other words, if this virus is active on your computer tomorrow (February 3), you could lose Microsoft Word documents, Excel documents, PowerPoint presentations, ZIP files, PDF documents, Photoshop files, and more.

The virus looks for files inside your PC (i.e. on the hard drive) and outside your PC (i.e. on USB "thumb drives" and memory keys as well as external hard drives).

What to do?
If you use a Windows PC, I recommend that you scan for viruses before midnight tonight. Make sure your anti-virus software is up to date, or it may not know about this relatively recent virus.

If you don't have anti-virus software -- and even if you do -- you might want to run a disinfection tool (e.g. the free F-Force utility offered by F-Secure).

Need more time?
If you can't disinfect or scan your PC by midnight tonight, no sweat. Anti-virus companies say this virus strikes when the computer clock says it's the third of the month. To buy more time, just trick the virus by setting the clock back a few hours (or a few days).

Backup Plan
This might also be a good time to make backup copies of any important personal files. Burn them on CD, or copy them to an external disk, but get them off the hard drive. Virus or no virus, this is good advice. Hard drives fail all the time, even without viruses.