I'd be backing up my Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP and PSD files right about now.
The latest virus threat called Blackworm has a rather destructive payload which destroys files and activates on Feb. 3.
"At 5:00 p.m. on Jan 24, more than 700,000 computers had already been infected by the worm, according to a stats counter used by the worm author. Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure, said the worm accounts for more than 17 percent of all virus infections in the last 24 hours.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that anti-virus vendors are all using different names to identify the worm. In addition to Kama Sutra, the worm has been named Blackworm, Blackmal, MyWife and Nyxem.
According to F-Secure virus researcher Alexey Podrezov, the mass-mailing worm also tries to spread using remote shares. Once a machine gets infected, the worm completely disables anti-virus and other security software before delivering a payload that destroys certain file types.
Once the worm's UPDATE.EXE file is run, it destroys all Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP and PSD files on all available drives."
Urgent Alert Raised for Blackworm D-Day
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