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