ANST - this is not a drill ... virus warning: "melissa"

[j'lynn yeates]

this is NOT a hoax:

the "melissa" variant has started making it's appearances widely in corporate 
email systems and security specialists expect it to break into the general 
internet population in the the next few weeks.  in the words of the McAfee anti-
virus folk,  "this is the fastest spreading virus we have seen"

note that this virus appears to do no harm, but is a major nusience as it clogs 
email systems and users inbox's.  the most probbaly damage is that it 
replicates so quickly that it overwhelms and possibly crashes email servers.

so far, the virus seems limited to Outlook and Outlook Express users.

if you receive a message over the next few weeks with the following header:

"important message from "name"", where names is someone who would have you in 
their email addres book, delete it .... it will contain text with something 
along the lines of "here's that document you asked for ..." and a attached Word 
file.  this file contains a macro virus that will scan for names in your 
address book, and replicate itself to the entries (up to 50).

microsoft has a patch available at:

www.microsoft.com/securities/bulletins/ms99-002.asp

for more information: 

www.cert.org/advisories/CA-99-04-Melissa-Macro-Virus.html

'wolf

... When we hunt, we all function with one mind
... - Boingo, Pedestrian Wolves
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