There are warnings about a computer virus that will be the first large
viral attack on the Internet of 2006, and the target date of its spread
is February 3...and on the third of every month thereafter.

  It's the KAMA SUTRA WORM, named for pornographic nude images that are
contorted into various images. It's also known as the W32/Nyxem-D worm.
Data on this is found on both the Sophos (www.sophos.com) and F-Secure
(www.f-secure.com) websites.

  It has already been spreading, but without announcing itself. Virus
experts say it is invading as many computers as possible...then on
February 3, it's going explode into a massive attack using all those
computers as a base for sending itself to as many other computers as
possible. It is also potentially very destructive...and if it gets loose
on a network, could cause havoc. It is designed to affect PC's (Windows),
but not MAC's. Apparently, well over 200,000 computers worldwide, may
already be infected...and that number is likely to grow.

  It arrives in an email with the subject lines "the best videoclip ever",
"give me a kiss", "school girl fantasies gone bad.", or
another vulgar,
pornographic related subject line. If you open the attached file, you are
infected.

  The W32/Nyxem-D worm has a destructive payload, which triggers on the
third day of any month, destroying DOC, XLS, MDB, MDE, PPT, PPS, ZIP, RAR,
PDF, PSD and DMP files by replacing their contents with the string:

DATA Error [47 0F 94 93 F4 K5]

  It will then search the Windows address book to further propagate itself,
as well as deleting other important files (including various DLLs (data
link libraries) on the system.

  Many current viruses seek to harvest information from your computer such
as bank numbers, passwords, social security numbers, credit card numbers,
etc. This one, however, is intent on destruction. On the third of each
month, the worm will try to disable your protection software such as
firewall or anti-virus programs. It will also, however, seek to delete
various files such as all Microsoft Office Documents.

  Experts are recommending you make sure that you have good antivirus
software on your computer and that the virus definitions are up to date.
Also, it's a good idea to scan youur system for viruses and spyware...
and, just in case, backup your important documents before February 3.


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