Free Republic

We just received the following e-mail and I thought I should alert my fellow Freepers: [Our] IT Organization has been alerted to a Microsoft Windows exposure, separate from last week's alert, that could potentially be exploited to cause destructive behavior in our network. We are not currently aware of any viruses or malicious software that specifically exploit the exposure. However, we are taking precautionary measures to protect our environment. This includes the roll out of a Microsoft-supplied corrective patch to all Windows Servers, desktops, and laptops. Additionally, given that the exposure involves the activation of sound or music files, we...

A fast-spreading Internet worm infecting more than a million computers worldwide forced the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to shut its offices for the day and is causing problems for other computer networks in the Washington region. The worm, dubbed "Blaster" by security experts, is having a "sporadic" effect on federal agency networks, said a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security......(snip) [Article is long but good]

This morning I got 17 emails in my inbox with the subject line either "Re: Application" or "Re: Movie", with .zip attachments. One of them was "from" my own email address with "3D" prepended. I also got back a notification from a ".mil" site saying that it was returning mail to me because there was a virus attached, so it appears that somebody is sending out these things with faked return email addresses from one or more spam lists It looks like we might have another worm storm happening like the "I Love You" virus from a couple of years...

The mysterious trojan horse that's been making security experts scratch their heads now has a name as more details of the oddball malware were made available. The trojan horse that has been causing confusion and concern among security researchers for over a month now has been dubbed 'Stumbler' by experts at Internet Security Systems (ISS). As reported earlier, Stumbler embeds itself in Unix systems and seems to be part of a concerted effort to map Internet-connected networks using port scanning techniques. A copy of the trojan was finally captured Wednesday, and investigation of its code began Thursday. After additional analysis,...

<p>Security researchers believe they have identified a new breed of Trojan horse that is infecting machines on the Internet, possibly in preparation for a larger coordinated attack.</p> <p>However, experts have been unable to pin down many of the details of the program's behavior and are unsure how many machines might be compromised by the Trojan.</p>

<p>June 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into a virus-like infection that has targeted the computers of banks worldwide, and officials warned financial institutions about the attack, the Associated Press reported.</p> <p>Computers of about 1,200 banks have been targeted by the virus, which tries to steal corporate passwords, AP said. The infection is known as ``BugBear.B'' and has spread to tens of thousands of consumer computers since last week.</p>

June 3 2003 A computer virus that traversed the globe last week struck again in a slightly mutated form over the weekend and continued to spread aggressively through email systems worldwide today. Both viruses try to trick recipients into opening their infectious attachments by pretending to originate from Microsoft Corp. This week's virus, dubbed "Sobig.C" by antivirus companies, forges its sender address, sometimes appearing to be from Bill Gates by using the address bill@microsoft.com and other times grabbing addresses from a victim's address book. "Sobig.B" - the other virus - faked, or "spoofed", the sender address to read support@microsoft.com. As...

<p>A notorious computer hacker has threatened to launch the most destructive computer virus the Internet has seen if the United States invades Iraq.</p> <p>Vladimor "Melhacker" Chamlkovic, 23, a Malaysia-based computer-geek who named a previous virus after Osama bin Laden, told The Post he has developed a new super virus.</p>

'Tis the Season…for Fake Email Greeting Cards Although most e-cards are from legitimate sources, the holidays create a prime opportunity for those seeking to do harm or take advantage of our festive spirit. This is the time of year to be especially aware of fraudulent, and potentially damaging, e-greeting cards. The recent Friends Greeting Applications (I, II & III) are prime examples of this type of threat. Get complete details in the McAfee Virus Information Library. How can you tell the good from the bad? First, you should remember that e-cards can contain viruses, and therefore, unless you KNOW they...

MEMORANDUM FOR: All NOAA Employees FROM: B---- V------, Director, NOAA IT Security Office SUBJECT: Computer Security Warning: W32/Bugbear@MM Worm The NOAA Computer Incident Response Team (N-CIRT) is receiving reports of widespread virus activity attributable to the W32/Bugbear@MM. McAfee AVERT has raised W32/Bugbear@mm to 'High' risk status. All NOAA users are reminded to exercise caution before opening any attachment received by email. System Administrators should ensure that the latest version of signature files is installed on all desktop PCs to protect against this worm and all other malicious software. Trojan component: The worm opens a port on the victim machine -...

<p>But initially, at least, the virus was not causing major problems for computer users, because its purpose appeared to be to open communication ports on infected systems and to replicate itself, not to destroy files.</p> <p>"It appears to be designed by someone who intended to steal credit card info or other data, not necessarily destroy files," said George Stagonis, a researcher for anti-virus company Central Command.</p>

My husband is out of town and unfortunately, he is the only computer capable one in my house. Please help! The following Alert popped up on my screen:Infected file name: C:Documents and Settings/Sales2/Local Settings/TempVirus name:JS/IEStart.gen.cVirus Scan Suggests: This infected file cannot be cleaned. You should delete the file and replace it with clean copy. Your data will not be affected.Problem is, when I try to delete it, it tells me I can't do that either. I'm clueless. If I just shut everything down and wait until he returns on Friday, isn't it possible my system will be destroyed? Any and...

As in same old......s The virus gets onto your computer through dubious unsolicited spam propaganda. It immediately attempts to deceive and shock the motherboard into thinking that its power will be cut off. It proceeds to gerrymander through the hard drive and section off various noncontiguous blocks for its own self preserving and nefarious purposes. It continues to scare the motherboard into thinking its power will be cut and also sends a message that the daughter boards will be starved of electrons. It attempts to disable personal protection such as anti-virus and maintains that only computers that serve in a...