Last significant modification: 15 February 2001
This information can be freely reproduced in any medium, as long as the information is unmodified.
An old, lame worm named VBS/VBSWG.J@MM, a.k.a. VBS/SST, AnnaKournikova, and VBS_Kalamar.a to antivirus products, and recognized by end users as "The AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs virus", has been spreading fairly rapidly today. While not at the level of some other things like VBS/LoveLetter and W97M/Melissa.A, it still is making some waves.
In its current form -- not a good way to identify it (use a scaner instead), but a reasonable heuristic --
At The University of Michigan, we don't expect any significant problems, because (a) it doesn't affect Macintoshes, and (b) our PCs have been protected against it by our site-licensed software since 11 August, 2000 -- almost 6 months, which is several eternities in antivirus terms. [VirusScan has known this since the 4092 drivers were released; we announced these on the day they were released. The current drivers are 4120.]
N.B. to our non-U-M readers: Those who use other antivirus products may be protected, or not, with the most current drivers available ; it's certain that all vendors who do not handle it are hustling to add detection, prevention and removal. As of 17:00 EST on 12 February, 2001, we are aware of at least 4 other products that do handle VBS/VBSWG.J@MM. The key is that you check with your vendor to see whther or not you are protected and, if not, that you install the update as soon as it becomes available.
Since we recommend upgrading antivirus software at least once a week, folks who follow our suggestions are well-protected. [This procedure can be automated within VirusScan; contact us for details.] This is just another example of why it is important to keep current.
VBS/VBSWG.J@MM doesn't do much damage, and can be removed with VirusScan directly through the GUI, without need for a clean floppy boot, assuming that the current SuperDAT, available to U-M folks from the U-M Virus Busters Download Page.
This is probably a good place to make some general recommendations:
NEVER ACCEPT UNSOLICITED ATTACHMENTS -- not even from those you know and trust.
Get top quality antivirus software, install it, and USE it.
Keep said software updated, preferably at least once a week.
Avoid crappy emailers that allow "active content", like the Microsoft Outlook variants. Otherwise, you WILL get bitten by junk like this.
We recommend that you not forward warnings about this to people; such alerts should come from internal tech support to their own flocks. Feel free to point people to this document, though, if you think someone may be at risk. (http://www.umich.edu/~virus-busters/sst.html)
For virus or hoax info, please see our main page (http://www.umich.edu/~virus-busters/) or go to another reputable site, like The Urban Legends Reference Pages (leaving our site).
-BPB
visits to this page since 12 February 2001 14:20 EST