Vinod Kurup

Hospitalist/programmer in search of the meaning of life

Aug 20, 2003 - 2 minute read - Comments - virus

New virus?

I’ve been getting weird emails over the past day or so. The From: address is always different, there is no body text and there is an attachment called your_document.pif. The From: address is sometimes recognizable, but seems to be spoofed.

Google only gave me 1 document for “your_document.pif” and that document states that this is a new virus called W32/Sobig.F-mm (link changed due to 404). Not much info about it yet, but it seems pretty widespread.

Update: Wow, google only had 1 document for the above search when I wrote this a few hours ago and now it has 391! Looks like this virus is just taking off. Fastest. Virus. Ever.

Comments from old site

Sobig.F

According to an article in today's paper (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 8/21/03) This was called the fastest growing virus ever by MessageLabs Inc. It halted CSX Transportation trains in Washington DC and infected more than 2000 computers at the University of Wisconsin Madison. It infects PC's running Microsoft Windows, and turns PCs into relayers of spam e-mail clogging computer servers on the internet and crashing networks. The subject line could say "Details", Thank You", or "Wicked screensaver". The virus doesn't appear to be destroying data or causing other lasting damage to the machines or networks it has infected. You just have to face the daunting task of deleting a ton of virus e-mails.

Andy Drout 2003-08-21 15:56:28

Heads up! Getting faster...

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