Many file types from Microsoft Office are targeted by Nyxem
PC users have been urged to scan their computers before 3 February to avoid falling victim to a destructive virus.
On that date the Nyxem virus is set to delete Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Acrobat files on infected machines.
Nyxem is thought to have caught out many people by promising porn to those who open the attachments on e-mail messages carrying the virus.
Anti-virus companies have stopped lots of copies, suggesting it had infected a large number of computers.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people, “Don’t open attachments unless you know who the person is and what they’re sending. Ever. Just don’t do it.” They always look at me funny.
Especially attachments that claim to be free porn. I mean, there’s enough free porn on teh internets already, you don’t have to open random attachments on e-mails to get your hands on some.
Though I agree with you on that, the problem is that due to the IT savvy and hedonistic talents of a few, even those who do not seekit may inadvertantly find it, due to hijacking of URL, link, and domain activity… thereby being exposed against their will. They do not deserve viruses at all.
A couple of days ago, my son was surfing flashplayer.com watching some stupid flash movies made by people with more time on their hands than they know what to do with.
Anyway, he is also a gamer and saw a link that said there were tips, hints and cheats and stuff like that. Well, it took him to a site that had tips alright; the tips of a bunch of womens bare chests!!! (heh, it took me a while to figure out how to say that in a clean, yet related and humorous way) He was quite taken aback by it and reported the finding to his mother right away. That is the only good thing about it. He has been banned from that site until we can figure out how to make sure that does not happen again. We have sent an email of complaint, but have not heard back yet.
So, parents beware. All links are not created equal.
Why would someone invent a virus that would only harm things on a certain day? And how would people know about it before that day? This all seems quite puzzling. It sort of sounds like a “tarantula in the beehive hairdo” story or something.
Why does anyone do anything? The thing about this virus is it’s
supposed to erase documents on the 3rd of every month (so they’re
hoping someone might restore from a backup on Feb 4th, and think
they’re OK, then on March 3rd, it hits again). Today is just the first
month the virus will be active since it was released into the wild…
How do people know about it? Well, it’s possible that some poor
Schmuck had his clock set wrong, and the computer thought it was
Feb 3rd when it was actually, say, Jan 16 (I think this is when the virus
was originally found). But more likely is that some smart person got
an email with the virus attached, and thought the attachment might
be a virus, so she sent it to the Anti-Virus expert of her choice. This
entity took the attachment apart (this is called “disassembling”) to
see what it did, and found the code that looks for the 3rd of the
month and deleted files. Then they informed the public. There’s a
lot of people who are really on top of this stuff, which is good,
because there are a LOT of virus writers…
We’ve heard nothing here about that virus either. So did anything happen? Did it really exist? What is that website that tracks down stories—darn, I just can’t remember.
