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A new malicious worm began infecting systems in the UAE last week. It threatens to launch an attack on February 3rd – and the 3rd of every month thereafter. The new worm, known by names such as Mywife, Nyxem, BlackMal, and CME-24.

Like most worms, the new threat propagates via email attachments and network shares, including popular P2P file sharing services. The email method of transmission employs common social engineering techniques – including the promise of pictures, pornographic content, or a joke – to entice users to open the corresponding attachment.

According to Jamz Yaneza, Senior Threat Analyst at antivirus and content security firm Trend Micro, though this worm utilises common propagation techniques, the code itself is anything but common.

“This is a destructive virus that deletes and overwrites any number of files present on a user’s system, by targeting the most popular file formats including .DOC, .XLS, .PPT, .PDF, and .ZIP, to name just a few. “In addition to losing a great deal of data, this virus also renders the keyboard and mouse inoperable, thereby leaving the user’s system dead in the water,” says Yaneza

There is good news, though. Since this threat is relatively well known to the security industry, most major security vendors detect this worm and its variants.
“The best defence is for users to run a scan of their systems, to ensure they haven’t been infected,” said Jeffrey Aboud, Trend Micro’s Threat Response Manager.

“The attack is hard-coded in the Worm, so if they haven’t been infected, then there’s no need to worry about the February 3rd attack, as long as they stay clean.”
Aboud offered the following advice for users:

·Do not open any emails from those you don’t know
·Do not open attachments from those you do know, if you weren’t expecting an attachment from that person, or if the content of the email seems out of character for that person
·Ensure your antivirus definitions are up-to-date.
·Run a manual scan with your updated product.

da best way to avoid virus is not to open unknown mails.....

roger that!!