OT: virus alert; NOT a hoax!

[J. L. Matthews]

Hello there,

Firstly, apologies for the cross-post - I don't do it often but this was
important enough to merit it.  For those who don't know me, my name's Jenna
Matthews, also known as J. L. Matthews, author of Slytherin Rising.

For the past forty eight hours or so, someone's been trying to send me a
virus.  No I'm not joking.  So far, my computer's not infected as I didn't
open the attachments.  I never do open attachments unless I know the sender
and have been told to expect them, and I definitely don't open any *.exe,
*.bat or *.pif files.

They appear to be being sent by someone named shelina, email address
chuni786 at gte.net.  (The address bounces whenever I try and send anything to
it, another sign that all is not well.)  The main message invariably reads
as follows:

"Hi! How are you?

I send you this file in order to have your advice

See you later. Thanks"

The subject titles can be anything but they usually focus on writing and
fanfiction in some way.

They have a 188 Kb file attached which is either a *.bat or *.pif file,
except they've cleverly made the actual name somethingelse.doc so as to try
and convince the recipient that it's an innocent story.

I've had about twenty of these little buggers, sent to both my Hotmail
account and main account since Friday.  The sender has since been blocked.
I thought I'd better put the word out and warn people, just in case someone
inexperienced in these things also starts getting them and is fool enough to
open the attachment.

Please, everyone, be on your guard.  If you get any similar messages, delete
them.  At once.  Without reading them.  Then put the sender on your
blacklist.  I'd also recommend a damn good virus protection program, if you
don't already have one.  If you do, upgrade your definition files.

UPDATE: it's the worm W32.Sircam.Worm at mm.  DEFINITELY do not open it,
Symantec and McAfee both reckon it's a high risk virus.

Jenna Matthews