Computers are being infected by Sircam virus

Computers are being infected by Sircam virus

KNOXVILLE (WATE) - Remember how much damage the "I love you" virus could do to your computer? A new virus called W32/Sircam@mm, or Sircam for short, may be much worse.

Travel agent Juanita McFall-Bishop books lots of trips to Cancun. So, when a familiar Mexican hotel sent her an e-mail titled "Cancun," with an attachment called "Cancun," she opened it.

The virus infected Juanita's machine, but it didn't stop there. It infected her entire computer network as well. Juanita says as soon as it happened, she realized it was a virus. "I'm going, yeah, I can tell. Something's crazy going on like the 'I love you' worm."

Sircam forwards a copy of itself to everyone in your email address book. One clue for recipients is email returned from outdated addresses.

Also, just like other email viruses, Sircam starts sending emails back to you. Juanita says, "I'm getting hundreds of emails continuously."

But unlike other computer worms, Sircam also scans your temporary Internet files and your documents folder searching for e-ail addresses of potential victims.

Instead of a red flag subject line, such as "I love you," Mike Biddle from WebsiteWorld.com says that Sircam, "goes through the infected computer and searches for a valid subject line that you've already sent. So it's going to be related to their business, and it's going to look like it's a real email."

Another clue for recipients is the email's body text that's either in Spanish or poorly worded English. The text may say, "I send you this file in order to have your advice."

If you've received an email with that body text, you can still delete it without being infected, as long as you don't open the attachment. But if you open the attachment Mike says to watch out. "Your system is going to be infected."

In fact, he adds, "The worm will send other people randomly selected files, maybe even confidential files from your hard drive."

Updated versions of virus protection software, such as the Sircam removal tool from www.symantec.com, can stop it.