02 Mar 2004
Did your computer beep beep beep this morning? Maybe you have the Netsky virus, Sophos advises
Early bird computer users may have been serenaded to a breakfast
chorus of beeps this morning, as the W32/Netsky-D worm
activated its peculiar payload.
The author of Netsky-D programmed their creation to beep the
computer's speaker sporadically between the hours of 06:00 and
08:59 on 2 March 2004.
"Computers beep and warble for all kinds of reasons, and if your
computer was chirruping this morning it doesn't necessarily mean
you have the widespread Netsky worm," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "The best way to tell if you have
a computer virus is not to use your ears, but anti-virus software
instead. But prevention remains the best medicine - taking care
over what emails you open is the best advice of all."
It is unclear why Netsky-D's creator chose to make his worm
beep, as well as the more traditional behaviour of spreading via
email, but Sophos researchers suspect it may be a childish
prank.
"The author may be amused by the thought of an office full of
infected PCs, all beeping away," continued Cluley. "But the Netsky
worm causes real harm by clogging up email systems and making
unauthorised changes to computer systems."
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.