Recent Virus Alerts

When you attempt to access the task manager on your computer or the registry editor and you get an error message, or if you attempt to click on any of your drives, you receive an error message.

Should you attempt to right click your mouse and get a message that talks about freedom, you have a virus. You are likely infected with what is known as the Freedom or Outlaw worm.

This worm disables the task manager and registry editor, the command shell and the folder options. Further, it also attempts to delete the MP3 files of any infected computer. The first thing that you are going to have to do is regain entry to the registry editor and the task manager. This has to be done before anything else can be done. You will look to your antivirus program for the removal tool, download it, run it, and then re enable the items that you need. From there you will follow the next set of instructions to make certain that you have removed this damaging virus.

Then comes the Storm Worm, which is an email Trojan type virus spread itself via email and used many different types of subject lines that regarded world news or global events. They were very cleverly written and would prompt one to open it just out of curiosity. Some, but not all, of the names that this virus came in were, "A killer at 11, he's free to kill again at 21." Saddam Hussein Alive, Fidel Castro Dead, or Chinese missile shot down Russian satellite. Certainly these were subjects that would get anyone's blood pumping. Exactly what the virus writers counted on and it worked.

Storm came in many different ways but every single attachment file did end in .exe. The symptoms of this particular virus were all different so because there was nothing to compare to people had to rely on their virus scan program to pick it up. The Storm virus would drop the file "wincom32.exe" into the Windows system directory. Disguised as a device driver, it would then modify the registry. Further, the device driver would inject a module into the services.exe process and set up a P2P network on the infected system. Then the Storm virus would download the files and execute them on the local system

Finally, the Maxima Screensaver worm showed up as an email attachment that read "Maxima Screensaver." Once it was opened
the entire screen would go black, which most people thought was part of the screensaver process. It would then display the dialog reading, "One moment please" and then it would prompt the user to restart the computer.

Once the reboot is in action, the rest is history. After it goes through an exceedingly viscous process, it results in the attacker being able to perform any action on your computer that you would be able to perform. Email is sent from the infected computer to a remote email address located somewhere in the Netherlands.