virus alert
 

I just received an email with a virus attachment which is pretty potent. It has an attachment called I LOVE YOU (U) either one and when you open the attachment sends the mail to everyone in your address list.

Since this arrived in my work mail - it accessed the huge corporate database. It sent out several hundred before I could stop it. Crashing the machine was the only option. It also sends it from you automatically. I think its a worm, it certainly replicates like one.

Not sure what other consequences, but hopefully only eats space, which can be rectified

Delete without opening attachment

What sort of attachment? Was it a ".exe" or a ".doc"?

Golden rule is never to open either (or Exell or other "office" files for that matter) if you are not expecting them or unless there is enough in the body of the mail to ensure that it's not "machine generated". Pretty Park even manages to "sign itself" with the name that is in the address book!

Beware!

Real name of the attachment please.

This one really is serious. It is currently going through our company as well, with many thousands of people receing multiple copies.

The attachment is called "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs" (Note the double extension)

It looks like it could do a great deal of damage to your pc, as well as tie up the e-mail network for a long time.

Ex sim guy, see my other response, I didn't even open the attachment. All I did was click on the email and it launched itself.

It comes from trusted sources, and you open the email to see what's in it. That's all it needs.