Clock Ticking for Nyxem Virus

DoddyUK writes "The BBC is reporting that the countdown has begun for the Nyxem virus. On February 3rd, common documents such as MS Word, Excel or Powerpoint will be overwritten on infected machines. Over 300,000 machines have been infected thus far, the main method of infection being the promise of porn in unsolicited emails."

Comments

Seems fair enough to me

[Threni]

Darwin's virus, you could call it. As long as it disables their internet access too, I don't see the problem.

Re:Seems fair enough to me

[TripMaster Monkey]

As long as it disables their internet access too, I don't see the problem.

Unfortunately, that is the problem....it's not going to disable internet access, as that would impair its ability to propogate.

From F-Secure:

The 'Nyxem.e' is a mass-mailing worm that also tries to spread using remote shares.

And from E-Security Planet:

Worm-Nyxem-E propagates via email. It sends a copy of itself using its own Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server. Having its own SMTP server allows it to send email messages without relying on email application like Microsoft Outlook.

Re:Who out there stilll doesn't get it?

[Fred Or Alive]

As 's elections show, there's an unlimited supply of stupid people in the world.

The motive?

[antifoidulus]

From the article:"It shows a certain intelligence in its design but what's the motive?" he asked, "Pure vandalism does not ring true these days."

Maybe economic chaos? The virus goes after MS Office files and pdfs, the files that are 9/10 the most economically valuable on a PC. I wonder what the impact of getting rid of massive amounts of these files would be?
On the plus side, lazy grad students can now say, "The virus ate my thesis" :P

Re:The motive?

[dheltzel]

Maybe economic chaos? The virus goes after MS Office files and pdfs, the files that are 9/10 the most economically valuable on a PC. I wonder what the impact of getting rid of massive amounts of these files would be?

Think of it as a long overdue purge of useless and redundant data on the systems of people who can't be bothered to learn a little about how their computer works or even listen to warning from people who do know a bit. Sort of a way of killing off all the stupid ideas and worthless information before they can do any more harm.

I know that seems harsh, but the only way I learned how crucial backups are was due to some loss of data (personal, fortunately, not the kind that gets you fired). That lesson has remained fresh in my mind for nearly 20 years. If someone survives an attack without great loss, they are more inclined to be complacent about the next threat. If they do lose something of value, they will consider how to reduce their risk in the future (tested backups, run Linux, don't click on email attachments without caution, etc.).

Re:av precautions

[andrewmc]

So who is right? Me or the colleague who eventually said that my reply to all was conterproductive?

I'd agree with your colleague on two points: 1) Telling people not to worry about computer security is just plain wrong. Users need to have it in the backs of their mind that while you are indeed trying to protect them, that relying solely on that is an accident waiting to happen. 2) Suppose an infected machine does make it onto your network? Since the virus can destroy files on remote network shares, it is, as I understand it, still possible data loss can occur on remote machines that are "immune" to the virus.

Re:Who out there stilll doesn't get it?

[sqlrob]

Wow what an optimist.

Melissa didn't do it.
Love didn't do it
MyDoom didn't do it.

Why do you think this will?

Hurry, before it's too late!

[ticklejw]

Now's a great time for porn-enjoying Windows users to switch to Linux! All the fun of free Internet porn with none of the viral infection.