In the past few days I have had fake messages carrying viruses from around
50 different ICOM-L members.  These present themselves in the subject
line as apparently genuine replies to specific messages I have posted to
ICOM-L.  However, all the the "replies" relate to very old messages - some
of them sent to the list more than 6 months ago.

All of these fake messages have in fact been attempts to forward the
BADTRANS-B virus - a worm-type virus which seems to be fairly specific to
MS Outlook mail systems, though I suppose it may also infect other e-mail
programs which use the Windows Addressbook facility.

BADTRANS (and two or three newer variants which are also beginning to
circulate) frequently send messages carrying the (hidden) virus to
everyone in your Microsoft Addressbook without you knowing it, so many -
perhaps all - of those who's infected e-mails I have just received may
have no idea that anything has been sent to me.

Also, the address of the "originator" is usually disguised, sometimes by
inserting an underline symbol _ in front of the genuine e-mail address, so
in many cases I have not been able to alert the affected colleagues
individually.

This now seems to be such a widespread (and growing) problem that everyone
using Windows systems on ICOM-L probably need to carry out an urgent virus
check - with an up-to-date virus checker.

Also, as BADTRANS and its derivatives exploit a weakness in Windows 95. 98
& ME + MS Outlook for which Microsoft issued a correcting security
"patch" last March, everyone should also check to see if they need to
update their Windows installation - free from the Microsoft web site.



Patrick Boylan