Virus Dangers |
A virus begins to spread in innocence,
and explodes like a
nightmare.
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If you've never been hit by a virus, you've been lucky. Sometimes I get as many as 3,000 emails a day and viruses rain off my protection software like cats skidding off a hot tin roof. The more valuable the information is you have on your computer, the more awful is the loss you may sustain. The worst of it is, you are only a link to the next place of destruction. You may be doing double the damage to everyone you love or care for. You may be destroying your own customer base. How bad is a virus? Forwarded emails with delectable ideas in them can be sent all around the globe in less than 24 hours. At ANY point in the transmission, a virus can be added. Many of these good ideas, stories, and anecdotes, are stolen from major magazines, which is why they are good enough to pass on. |
Now, I like a good story as much as anyone. When the message is too good to pass up, these are the steps I take:
As I've been hit several times by the kak virus, let me describe some of the damage done to me:
It locked up my computer. The mouse didn't work, then the monitor quit, then the keyboard ceased to function occasionally, and blank lines keep appearing in files written. Apparently this virus is transmitted through the signature inserted in outgoing mail.
I lost everything on the computer because my only recourse was to wipe the hard drive completely clean, and then start over.
With any virus, the first thing you should do is warn anyone you may have infected so it can be stomped out, after making as sure as possible that you are not REINFECTING them.
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Some advice from my friend PJ A near miss with the Happy virus last year cured me of opening any |
Remember, a virus no longer needs to be INSIDE an attachment to do its
damage. It can be hidden right inside a plain letter. It can even
skip your computer and go to everyone you forward the letter TO.
To see if you have this particular virus on your computer, and if you have Outlook Express mail, you will want to go to Tools, Options and Signatures. If you see KAK on that window, delete it out. This is how the worm is spread via email. This does NOT remove the worm from your system however.
To see if you have KAK, Go to your START button, go to FIND, then to FOLDER, and type in KAK. If your computer finds one or more (mine found 7) then your computer is infected with a virus.
One of those files is a message in TEXT:
Johnny was a daylighter flatliner. He knew not what he dun. The whole wide world looked at him.
The other one I have rendered into a TEXT file for your protection and it reads.
Marleen K. RobertsMarleen K. Roberts˙˙Talewinsś€€€€€€ …
What this file does is to attach itself to documents, like outgoing mail, where my signature appears.
For a double check on Microsoft 95/98 - just go to Start/Find/Folder and type in 'loveday14-a.hta' and if all is clear then do the same and type in VBS/San@m - if all is clear you are ok.
For independent verification of the seriousness of this virus, you can also read up on this specific virus at this link:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.san@m.html
Here's another source: InnoculateIT worked for me! The Personal Editions is a free antivirus program for your desktop. Computer Associates is offering this as a service for PC users in order to significantly limit the damage to PCs caused by viruses. IPE automatically detects and cleans conventional file and boot sector viruses as well as macro viruses that infect Office 95, Office 98, and Office 2000 Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Access databases. It provides protection against Internet and email-borne viruses, protecting your PC from infected files downloaded from the Web and from infected attachments sent to you via email.
A word of warning: Using your FIND does not find kak.htm anywhere on the computer. With some physical maneuvering I got
my machine where I could type again and created a short message, and saved it as kak.htm
in windows. This OVERWROTE THE FILE and helped me get my computer unlocked a little bit.
The Kagou was still on my machine because phone lines from here to Holly Springs where my
computer specialists are located were not functioning that day.
This should be sufficient data to help you decide if you do have the virus and get professional help.
In researching this matter on the web I've found three web sites which have copies of this kak virus innocently posted as part of their sig. You can look at the whole Kagou script there... Note, you'll have to do a find as this party did not know they had it either, I don't believe!
Email Viruses are a dime a dozen. This one is REAL.
The following description comes from PCHELL.
The Wscript KAK Worm is a worm/virus that attacks systems using Outlook Express. It uses a known security vulnerability to attach itself to every email sent from an infected system. It is written with Javascript and it attacks both the English and French versions of Windows 95/98, if Outlook Express 5 is installed.
What makes this worm unique is its ability to infect a system by someone simply reading or previewing an email message. The worm hides in the HTML of the email itself. When the message is previewed or opened by the recipient, the worm automatically takes control and infects the computer.
If neither Outlook Express nor MS Internet Explorer 5.0 are installed, the worm is not able to infect the machine. The worm has another potential side effect as well. On the 1st day of any month and the hour is 5:00pm, the following message is displayed and Windows is sent a command to shutdown. You may also see a "Driver Memory Error" occur when starting Windows.
You do need to visit and get the rest of the story! The site even has clear directions for removing the damages this worm has done. They aren't clear enough for a Typhoid Harry like me to follow, but I intend to take the helpful words to my computer geek this morning just in case he doesn't know them already.
W32.Blaster.Worm
Removal Tool: Version 1.0.6.1 of the W32.Blaster.Worm Removal Tool
will remove the following threats as well as their side effects:
W32.Blaster.Worm W32.Blaster.B.Worm W32.Blaster.C.Worm W32.Blaster.D.Worm
W32.Blaster.E.Worm W32.Blaster.F.Worm
U.S. Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability can keep you up to date on what is real and not. All I know is, this has happened to me three times now in rapid-fire order.
Good Luck to you in your battle against the senseless virus menace flooding the wonderful world of the web.
Just recently I have discovered there IS a cure for web masters for email viruses. Let me know if you are interested by dropping a line to me.. talewins-b@talewins.com
Sincerely Yours, Marleen K. Roberts.
So many people believe that anything on the web, from the web, or through the web, is FREE FOR THE TAKING. That quite bluntly is not true. Click HERE for more copyright information.
No advice on this site should be used
without first contacting a professional in that field.
.