Destructive virus causes relatively minor damage

Damage from the file trashing Mywife virus which activated today February 3, is reported to be relatively minor.

The virus, which is also known as Nyxem, afflicts Windows computers and is scheduled to start deleting several types of document files on users computers.

Malware filtering programs have filtered out millions of copies of the virus as it attempted to spread across the Internet, but damage is reported to be light.

The mass mailing malware tries to entice users into opening an attached file in an email message. Opening the file causes the virus to send itself to all the contacts that are contained in the computers address book. It may also spread over active network shares on systems that have blank administrator passwords.

Widespread publicity prior to the attack trigger date has led to many users installing up-to-date virus checkers and making sure that their systems are clean.

However, on systems that are infected, the malware can permanently corrupt a number of common document format files on the third day of every month.

February 3, 2006 is the first time this malware is set to permanently corrupt the content of specific document format files including .doc, .pdf, .pps, ,pps, .psd and .xls files.

The virus can also interfere with certain computer security-related programs and may prevent these applications from running during start-up.

Computer security specialists have established that around 300,000 computers are infected with the virus as it attempts to send a report from the host PC to a website address. Most infected computers are in India and the far east, but in Europe a high number of cases were reported in Italy and the UK.

Computer users and administrators have been urged to ensure that their anit-virus software is up dated regularly and is active.

(SP/KMcA)