It could be a blip but this morning an incidence of the Hybris virus, first caught in the wild in September last year, cropped up here at PC Advisor Towers.
Hybris worm rears its head at PC Advisor
Antivirus firm Symantec told us that the email, containing a file that appears to be a screensaver — denoted by the .scr filename suffix — was first distributed in September 2001. It's true that the virus would be dealt with by up-to-date antivirus software files, but obviously there are boxes out there still infected.
The email we received was sent from the address 'hahaha@sexyfun.net' with the header 'Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs - The REAL story!'. Inside is a file named 'midgets.scr'. Obviously you should not open this file.
According to Symantec: "When the worm attachment is executed, the Wsock32.dll file is modified or replaced. Once the worm has infected wsock32.dll, it has the ability to monitor the internet connection as well as incoming and outgoing email traffic.
"The worm then scans for email addresses. When an email address is detected whether on an internet site or in email being sent or received, the worm waits for a period of time and then sends an infected message to the detected address."
For more information on how to deal with a Hybris infection, click here.
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