Nyxem E - Be Safe From This Virus/worm Latest Mass Mailing Worm

[Inspiron 0]

Windows users are being urged to scan their computers before 3rd February 2006 to avoid falling victim to a destructive Worm.
On that date the Nyxem E Worm is set to delete Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Acrobat files on infected machines!

Don't get caught out...

See complete article at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Better get your anti-virus updated by 3rd Febuary before seeing your files go missing. It's kindda scary worm if not handled properly. The date is near so get updated fast.

Notice from mayank:

Edited topic title.

Edited February 1, 2006 by mayank (see edit history)

[mayank 2]

Well thanks Inspiron for this information!

The best thing is that everyone should be carefull before opening any attachment! They must be sure that the attachment they have recieved is from there well wishers.
Secondly, they must use an antivirus and if they dont have one then they can use Trendmicro's free virus scanning utility -> http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

And it is best that they use well known web based email services because they scan your email with antiviruses

[serverph 0]

i've reported this in my blog january 23rd... guess nobody from Xisto is reading my blog.

 

anyway, from my blog, there is a free tool you can use to disinfect your machines before the deadline passes as mentioned above. HOWEVER, first reports of damage from this worm has been circulating. WHY, even though it's not yet the 3rd of February?

 

The destructive deadline of the Nyxem.E worm is based on the clock of the infected machine. So if you're infected and your clock is not set right, things could start to happen at any time - even though the official activation time is the 3rd of the month. We've already received first reports from users who've had files on their system overwritten by the worm.

 

When Nyxem activates, it will overwrite all of your DOC/XLS/PPT/ZIP/RAR/PDF/MDB files. This is nasty, as this is done on all mounted drives, ie. any drive that has a drive letter. So it might affect your USB thumb drives, external hard drives and network drives! Also, if you're taking daily automatic backups you might end up backing up the corrupted files over good files.

 

The number of machines that have been infected by this worm is over 300,000. Many of those have been disinfected already, though. But thousands of computers will get their files overwritten on February 3rd - most of them in India, Turkey and Peru.

so there you go, get started cleaning up your system, especially if you are experiencing system freezes lately.

[wild20 0]

Thank you for the update. I am lucky. I was surfing a window poped up and said that my Virus scan deleted and cleaned a file infected with a Trogan. So I was lucky that time. It is sad when you have to have a scanner to protect your computer from the things you surf on. Like the Internet. I just did a scan two days ago, so I should be safe. Thanks for the news.

[delivi 0]

Thanks for the alert pal. This would save a lot of Xisto members from falling prey to this new threat.

[dementeddemon 0]

Thanks for telling us about this virus/worm.It's been very useful and informative to me.

[icemarle 0]

It's already February 3 here... 12:58AM, actually, and I'm happy to know that I'm very much safe. Funny that I read this topic just when it was 12AM though... Anyway, I'd still keep my eye out for it just in case March 3 comes up... I haven't updated my antivirus software for ages. I need to get a new version.

[Plenoptic 0]

Well I will make sure to tell everyone I know to be careful with their email. I hope I don't end up catching it. I already have enough spam email though I don't think I will open that one. I only open it from places I know and sometimes even then I delete them. Thanks for the warning.

[Inspiron 0]

It didn't happen to me either. A few hours later will be 4th Feb. Hopefully nothing will happen. I've updated my AntiVirus as well and it didn't prompt findings of new viruses. Probably it didn't reached to me. Or probably it'd bypassed the AntiVirus and now inside my computer already. A full system scan shows nothing. So just hope nothing will happen to my computer.

[delivi 0]

Here In India all the Newspapers and media issued a warning to the public about this Virus and adviced not to use internet for 1 day. Will this virus stop working after 3rd Feb?

[Inspiron 0]

W32.Blackmal.E@mm is a mass-mailing worm that attempts to spread through network shares and lower security settings. On the third day of every month it attempts to rewrite files with certain extensions with custom text.

 

According to Symantec, this virus executes on the third day of every month if the system remains unclean. Hence it will remain active always until the user removes it from the infected computers.

 

If that's the case, will people in India not use the internet every third day of every month?

 

Full article from Symantec..

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[delivi 0]

According to reports nearly 1 lakh computers were affected in India. This led to a loss of about 86 Crore Rupees (approx. 19.5 Million US Dollars). But most of them have taken preventive action so this has reduced in numbers otherwise the number would have double or tripled.

[snipehw19 0]

Ive heard on a Podcast with Leo Laport and Mr Grc ...(i forgot his name) lol .... that its a descrutive virus for .doc Microsoft Office or Spreadsheet like .xls .csv .dbf etc and fill those files with useless numbers and letter that ,make then your data unavailable..... is anyone is yet infected.... ?

[Dooga 0]

hmm... This worm might actually be useful! I have so much junk I think that I should be downloading these worms

[psychiccyberfreak 0]

yeah they knew about this a while ago. Thanks for the info, but most antivirus programs update themselves. They talked about this on the podcast "security now!" which you can check out at https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm